You should be able to pull out the outlets further--don't let that hold you back. Just takes some plastic washers. What about some beadboard (the thin sheets, not the actual individual tongue and groove stuff) painted up nicely?

I had the same Z-Brick and I wanted to put up a tile backsplash so I tackled taking the brick out. I used a hammer and a beveled one inch chisel, it wasn't as difficult as I feared, just took some time and lots of coffee breaks. It will ruin the finish on your drywall and will most likely produce several holes. I patched the holes with patch kits I bought at Lowes and when that was done I resurfaced the wall with drywall compound and got the surface as smooth and level as I could. I tiled the backsplash and all went great and it looks fine. It can be done with a little elbow grease and a lot depends on what kind of adheasive he used, that will determine the difficulty of this project. I have before during and after pictures, I will try to post them later. The outlets are no problem just longer bolts if needed and a few washers.

Hey, thanks...I'm almost tempted to try the hammer & chisel! Do you remember how long it took?? And, this may sound silly but does the brick fly off in pieces or just kind of fall down? I don't think the wallboard would have to be perfectly flat as my dream backsplash would be beadboard. I just want to avoid having to replace the drywall--that's really the killer for my DH.

Most of the bricks came off as whole pieces and the ones that didn't came off in large chunks [never had any that broke into little pieces and went all over the place] just make sure you put down plastic or newspaper to help with cleanup. The key is to put the flat side of the chisel against the wall and go even with the wall when possible, try not to dig into the wall. If I remember right I started around 9am and was finished by noon and that was on a L shaped wall, so I had several bricks to remove. If you were going to paint you would have to replace the drywall but since your not you should be fine. Try on a couple of bricks to determine where to put your chisel [right side, left side or middle] to get the best results, mine the middle seemed the best. It just takes some determination and keep focused on the final result which makes it worth doing.

Silly DH--compared to removing that stuff, drywall is easy! Especially since you won't have to do a great tape job.

Yeah...take it out! I think you'll enjoy it. :)

But if hubby really balks at it, you can cover.

I had that in my kitchen. I painted it and lived with that for a year before finally removing it. When I did remove it, I had pretty much the same experience as the other poster. Not too bad, the stuff came off pretty easily, but more work than patching drywall.

I really liked the way it looked painted. But it's hard enough to keep that stuff clean anyway, and painting made it worse. Part of that was my barely working recirculating range hood, I'm sure. It was a terrible combination.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

Have any of you refinished with the beadboard? I'm concerned that if * don't smooth out the wall enough it will be wavy.

This area, the black grout peeled off with the top layer of the drywall. Other area still has a lot of black grout