That Looks Like a Brick Patio, but She Made It With Paint and a Dollar Store Sponge
Brick appears to cover the patio outside this small townhouse, complete with uneven rectangular blocks, pale mortar lines, and the slight variations that keep a masonry surface from looking too precise. None of those red blocks are bricks.
Debbie of Debbie-Dabble Blog started with a bare concrete patio made from sections poured at different times. The seams between those sections bothered her, but covering the slab with outdoor carpet again was not an option after dealing with carpet that stayed wet after rain.
Her replacement involved no pavers, brick veneer, or masonry work. She bought red porch-and-floor paint and a pack of sponges from Dollar Tree, then used the concrete itself to create the part that makes the finished floor convincing: the mortar joints.
Bare concrete left every addition to the patio visible
Before paint, pale concrete ran beneath the seating area and stopped at visible seams where separate sections met. Debbie explained that her father had added concrete after the original patio proved too small, leaving joints across the expanded slab.
Furniture, planters, flowers, and garden ornaments filled the space, but the floor remained a broad concrete surface beneath them. That left one continuous base for the new pattern without requiring removal of the existing slab.
She used a sponge to establish each brick
Red paint covers two rectangular sponge pieces in a foil tray. A gallon of Valspar satin latex porch-and-floor paint in brick red cost $25, while a two-sponge pack came from Dollar Tree. One sponge was cut in half before the work began.
Instead of coating the patio from edge to edge, paint was brushed onto the sponge before each press against the concrete. Every impression formed another brick-shaped block, with strips of bare concrete left between them to create the mortar effect.
Bare concrete became the mortar lines
The trick becomes clear once several rows appear. Red rectangles cover most of the slab, while narrow strips of original concrete remain exposed between them.
Those strips are not painted grout lines. Bare concrete stands in for mortar, turning the original patio surface into part of the pattern. After each sponge impression, a brush defines the edges and adds more red where needed.
Small differences between the painted blocks keep the pattern from looking stamped from a rigid stencil. Edges and lengths shift across the floor, drawing attention away from the larger seams in the concrete underneath.
The pattern hides the slab beneath it
Once the red blocks spread across several concrete sections, attention moves from the slab joints to the smaller grid created by the faux bricks.
Some blocks are long, some short, and rows offset rather than stacking into a strict grid. Existing expansion joints remain in the patio, but they no longer provide the dominant pattern.
Debbie noticed the same effect after finishing, writing that the added sections of concrete were no longer easy to see.
Up close, the imperfect edges help sell the effect
Close inspection shows that the red shapes do not have machine-cut borders. Paint follows the concrete texture, corners vary, and some blocks carry more pigment than others.
Those differences matter. A perfectly repeated rectangle could read as a stencil from across the patio. Here, small changes between blocks resemble the variation expected from individual pieces of masonry.
The pale concrete lines provide enough separation for each painted shape to register as its own brick.
Furniture makes the painted floor harder to spot
Once the wicker furniture returns, the faux finish stops reading as a painting project and starts functioning as the patio floor.
White furniture creates contrast against the red surface, while terracotta pots and yellow flowers bring more warm color around it. From standing height, the narrow concrete gaps resemble mortar joints between brick.
Nothing was added on top of the slab. The apparent brick surface remains paint, sponge marks, brushwork, and exposed concrete.
The brick effect continues across separate concrete sections
Longer views reveal the old expansion joints crossing the patio, but the smaller brick pattern competes with them. Rows continue from one slab section into the next instead of treating every concrete panel as a separate area.
That continuity is what changes the floor. The eye follows dozens of small red blocks rather than a handful of large concrete divisions.
Debbie said she had seen the idea of stenciling concrete to resemble brick in a magazine, then chose to put her own spin on the technique.
One side shows what paint changed
The surrounding patio already had strong color from flowers, painted furniture, planters, and garden pieces. Before the project, all of that stopped at the plain concrete floor.
Red faux brick brings the floor into the same composition without introducing another material. Existing concrete becomes both the structural surface and the visible “mortar.”
Finished patio reads as brick from across the garden
From farther into the garden, individual sponge marks disappear. What remains is a red-and-pale grid beneath the chairs and tables.
That distance is where the illusion works best. The painted rectangles become a field of brick-sized shapes, while the exposed concrete supplies the light joints a viewer expects to see around masonry.
Paint changed the patio without covering the concrete
No new surface had to be laid over the slab. Debbie kept the patio her father had expanded and changed how its seams registered by adding a smaller pattern across them.
The project also preserved something she did not expect to rediscover. While working, she found family names written in the concrete and coins her father had embedded in one corner when the patio was poured.
Same concrete patio, different floor
Side-by-side views expose the full trick. Plain concrete occupies the seating area on one side; red faux brick fills the same space on the other.
No bricks replaced the slab, and no mortar filled the pale joints. Gray concrete remains visible between painted rectangles, creating the lines that make the surface read as masonry.
But what happens when rain hits the patio or the floor needs washing? The project used satin latex porch-and-floor paint rather than standard wall paint, so the coating was made for a surface that gets walked on.
For added protection, a clear exterior concrete or patio sealer compatible with the specific floor paint can provide another barrier against water, dirt, and washing. Compatibility matters because not every clear sealer can go over every type of painted concrete, and some products can also make a wet patio more slippery.
Image credits go to @debbie-dabbleblog.