Exposed Brick

Last December, M. was in Montreal for a conference and she, H. and I had dinner one cold Saturday night at Figaro. Somehow we got to talking about exposed brick, and H. suggested it would be a good topic for a blog post. I agreed, wrote it down on my list of future blog topics when I got home, and am now writing it, deciding it would be good post this month since I feel like I've been noticing exposed brick everywhere recently.

In a way, my first exposure to exposed brick came in my house in Toronto because the wall of the whole back/TV room of our house is brick. It's not so much exposed, however, as original as it's just the actual old exterior wall of the house (complete with a window and a glass single frame door) which the previous owners of the house decided to keep when adding on the back room. The brick is dark and rough and while I love the backroom of my house, the brick is not at all like the more chic red or rusty coloured exposed brick that seems popular these days. I prefer that popular style but I would take the brick wall in my house over whitewashed exposed brick. I like white walls in houses but if you're going to have bricks, I think they should be their real colour and not white.

My first exposure to exposed brick (the kind we don't have in my house) came at Cloyne, this co-op L. and N. lived at our second year of Berkeley. Cloyne was on Ridge Road, on Berkeley's northside, and the biggest co-op (could house 150 people) out of this whole network of co-ops where students lived. Cloyne was known for its parties. Maybe twice a semester, it had big parties - where you had to pay to get in, there were hundreds of people, and long long lines for beer. It also had this other type of party that was maybe only once a semester called a room to room. In these parties, whoever wanted to participate would "open" their room at a designated time and serve drinks according to a theme. Cloyne had three wings - east, central and west, and each wing would be "open" at different times during the night. After all the rooms were closed, people just hung out anywhere in the house. Room to rooms were invitation only (so the people who lived at Cloyne and whoever they invited) and weren't open to the general public like the big parties. My favourite type of party at Cloyne was the Special Dinner (which was again only people who lived there plus their guests) where everyone got dressed up and drank champagne and ate good food and the dining room was lit only with candles. (In May of our second year there was also a Special Brunch, which was the same idea except it happened in the daytime, under bright sunlight, and I had to limit myself to two small glasses of champagne because I was meeting up with some people to study right after it.) Cloyne seemed so much nicer at Special Dinner - everyone was having fun and being nice to each other and I would sense a real feeling of community that I never felt at any of the other parties or any other times I was there.




At one of the room to rooms during our second year (my invitation courtesy, as always, of L.), L. and I ended up in a corner bedroom on the third floor of the west wing whose theme was tropical and who were serving drinks made with malibu rum. Corner rooms are always the best, but this one was particularly nice because one whole wall had exposed brick. If I remember correctly, only corner rooms had exposed brick at Cloyne. Despite going over to Cloyne fairly often I think that was the only room with exposed brick I saw as none of my friends' rooms had it. But I do remember that there was this aura about exposed brick at Cloyne and how those rooms were considered to be better than most of the other rooms in the house that didn't have exposed brick.

I think exposed brick looks best in the living room or the kitchen of a home (although I have to admit it did look good in Cloyne and those were bedrooms) because those rooms tend to be bigger, and because more people gather in them and it's nice to show off the brick. Like I said at the top, I've been noticing exposed brick all over these past few months. I was at Figaro the other day and for the first time really noticed how the walls in their open kitchen are exposed brick. It adds a really nice touch. This cafe near my apt here in Montreal called Entre le cafe et la plume (it opened last summer, after I had written those posts on cafes or I likely would have mentioned it there) is a great cafe (see picture below). It is very small - just one fairly small room but it's so nice. The bathrooms are so clean and bright and the whole main wall of the cafe is an exposed brick wall. Even though I don't drink coffee (and therefore can't order that there), find their chai latte nowhere near sweet enough, and find their tea way overpriced, I still go to that cafe on a somewhat regular basis just so I can enjoy the brick wall (which contributes so much to the overall ambiance).



Exposed brick can make a room feel really inviting and comfortable and provide a charming backdrop for cooking and conversations. It is definitely something that would be an added bonus in any future houses or apts in which I may live.