Hello all...

I was wanting to replace paneling on a basement wall with drywall but it will be butting up against a brick wall that I want to keep. How do you finish the corner where the brick and drywall meet?

 

A couple ways...

If the brick is very smooth, like a painted chalk brick wall, just flat tape the edge, finish up the the brick normally, being neat and clean about it so as not to mess up the brick surface.

If the brick is somewhat irregular, a j-channel or j-bead can be installed, and the seam between the j-channel and the brick can either be caulked or left alone if it's acceptable.

You might also be able to find a tear away L-bead, which is similar to a j-channel but requires some finishing over the edge of the l-bead. once it has been sanded and finished there is a fin that gets cut off to leave a nice clean edge. Again, since brick is usually rough and irregular, there may be a gap between the nice straight finished edge of the drywall and the brick. This could be caulked or left alone if it's acceptable. The advantage of the L-bead is that there is no 1/2" wide front face on the bead that is left showing like you have with a j-channel. But if you are going to caulk the gap, the j-channel might provide a better surface to caulk against.

The only other idea would be to actually grind a perfectly straight slot in the brick that would allow the drywall j-channel or l-bead to recess into the brick just enough that there is no caulking or gap... but that might be beyond a DIY'er ability to do.