One of the great things about wall cladding is it gives a room instant character.  One of my favorite types of wall cladding is veneer, or thin brick.  If you purchase thin brick, it can get pretty expensive because all the cutting is done for you.  If you are operating more on a budget, you can order a lift of brick, and have your mason cut them like we did here.  The benefit to cutting them is- you guessed it, cost.  We ordered a lift of brick, and after slicing both face sides of the brick, were able to generate enough veneer to clad both the master bedroom wall and the kitchen walls.  If you’ll notice in the photos, we had a sheetrock backdrop for the wall, and then added a felt and lathe underlayment so our brick would be able to be mortar applied.  From there, our finishing touch in this case was a sack joint, or smear joint grout that is almost an over-application smeared.  This technique exposes the majority of the brick but not all of it.  You see this a ton in the old German architecture surrounding the hill country and it gives the wall somewhat of a historic look.  I see a popular trend today is the combination of more refined furnishings, light fixtures, etc. blended with these historic type finishes.  The trick is to make the blend of different eras make sense as you transition from room to room without seeming too haphazard in my opinion.  In other words, don’t have a historic look and feel outside, then when you walk through the door you’ve entered TomorrowLand.  If you have the budget, you can order the more costly, precut bricks that can be done over the course of a weekend project but I just wanted to share how we attack it because we get lots of compliments from folks no matter the color.