The Pot Rack in our 100 Year Old House

Finally!!

I am going to show you the pot rack in our 100 year old house today!

This was a DIY project that we accomplished with minimal tools and skills. Here’s what we did…

First…

going back to when we first bought this old house,

then we gutted the kitchen…

all except the wall in the left of this picture with the phone outlet on the country style wallpaper. That wall only needed the beadboard and wallpaper removed, but the plaster below was still firmly attached to the wall.

Although I don’t have ‘during’ pictures, it’s pretty easy to explain.

For this DIY project, I used a thin brick material purchased online: (free delivery too!!)  thin bricks for faux chimney

It is a real brick, just thin and mounted to a mesh backing like how they do with tile mosaics.

This is really cool stuff! Because it’s so thin, you can mount in on plaster or sheetrock or wood or masonry block… basically anything without any prep work need at all. And it can be indoors or exterior. And because it’s mounted on the mesh, the installation is so fast.

The directions for it say you can use standard tile mortar to install or construction glue. We opted for the construction glue in a caulk gun tube.

But before I get a head of myself, before we, (my son and I worked on this project together) applied the the brick,

we determined where on the wall the brick was going to start and stop. There were a few obstacles… There is a baseboard radiator heater below, and light switches to the left, and a corner on the right. So we opted to go from the baseboard heater up to the drop ceiling above for the height.

For the width, I had bought 4 pot rack hangers from (maybe?) Decor Steals… I can’t remember for sure… but they sell stuff like that, so could be…

Anyway, the finished width of the brick needed to accommodate these without looking crowded and without looking too spaced out. Once that was determined, we actually started by mounting the wood vertical borders.

We had an old weathered beam that my carpenter cut into 2 pieces to frame the brick on each side.

This would give it an old look and finish the edges of the brick nicely. So applying a thick squiggle line of construction glue caulk to the backs of the 2 boards, and nailing it on, to hold until the caulk dried, we had our tall strip of wall space for the brick defined.

Then it was simply just a matter of squeezing that construction glue out onto the brick mesh back and setting it on the wall, firmly wiggling it back and forth a few times to get it to get a good grip of the wall. For the most part it stayed where it was supposed to, but a couple pieces did want to slightly slip down the wall a little. Once the glue set up and got stiffer that took care of that.

For the mortar in between the brick, I had my carpenter, who also has done a lot of tile work, do it.

I know I could have, but it was much easier and less messy to just have him do it.

Remember that ‘Z-brick’ from the 70’s (I know, I’m dating myself) but a lot of people used that stuff in their homes, trying to get that exposed brick look… the biggest failure with that is that they used a black tar looking mortar… I don’t know why they decided that was the way to go, but it was horrid looking. So to make my exposed brick realistic looking I used a natural colored sanded grout. It looks just like real brick mortar.

The actual wood and metal potracks I found at this source:

They offer a few limited stock items on special each day… one day the potracks came up and I snagged them. I’ve seen them come up again, so you just need follow them for a while. 🙂

I love having a pot rack in my kitchen…

I just can’t imagine sacrificing that much cupboard space to store all these pots and pans. And some of these pans are so large and would be difficult to get to inside a cabinet, but here I can just grab what I need. In our former house, we had a pot rack over the island. This kitchen we didn’t have the space for it there, so we had to think a bit creatively, and the way this kitchen is laid out with the wall jutting out here already, it just seemed like the perfect spot to make a pot rack.

This wall mounted, exposed brick, pot rack was a fairly easy DIY project, given that my son helped a lot and my carpenter did the grout. 😉

**UPDATE** Since this post my son worked on a new project at his house… you can read about it here: faux exposed brick chimney. It turned out great!

And I know, from my last post about a pot rack, that some of you are thinking about the dust. For me, it hasn’t been an issue at all. there isn’t noticeable dust on the pans, but just to be sure, when I grab whichever pot I’m going to cook with, I give it a quick rinse in the sink in case there is some dust on it, and it’s good to go.

So I hope with all my encouragement to you regarding the benefits of pot racks, if your pots and pans are taking up too much space in your cabinets, or you just want to create a bit more interest in your kitchen, you are thinking about how to best design and implement one for yourself. If you want any input from me, I’d love to help you out, so feel free to comment or email me with your thoughts, questions, or just to share your ideas!

For this DIY project, I used a thin brick material purchased online. (free delivery too!!) thin brick.

Here are some more pot rack designs:

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