Is this the only spot where this architectural detail lives in the room/house? Left over from what? As a stand alone feature your question reveals you know the answer.

wow thanks for the quick feedback, full context i had an accent brick wall in the basement and these are the left over. However, this is a stand alone feature in the main living room leading to the dining room

I appreciate your candor Patricia, my main driver for placing these bricks was to cover traces of hands, I couldn't think of a way to keep the wall white while preventing these traces. I know confusing, but people always put their hands on the wall in my neck of the the wood and it gets real nasty

How about limewashing them so they blend in better with the room?

Hi. Nice try, but they really do look like an afterthought especially right there next to your sleek cabinet. Part of what may not look “right” about this “column” is that the bricks are not a very pleasing color. However, I think the texture of the bricks might be a nice accent. A few coats of the wall color paint will help integrate the brick feature into the color scheme your already have established. If that doesn’t work and you still do not want to remove them, cover them with dry wall or a material that bends and would create a softening curved column. Definitely, paint it the same wall color. Good luck.

If this continues to be a spot that gets dirty...the brick will be much more difficult to clean than a smooth wall...

thank you for the quick honest inputs, yeah definitely a bit of an afterthought, will try the painting with the same color and share the images here. If it remains a fail, I will consider removing them 😓 ... I thought I had the right idea, but it's been rather cringing to look at if

Sometimes the one thing that seems wrong becomes the most interesting thing in the room...if you add a few other rustic features that tie in with this look... the thing that remains bothersome is the white strip that is not covered with brick?..and lastly if there is nothing you love about it...learn from it..it is not wrong to have things in a room that don’t match ..it just shouldn’t be only thing that doesn’t match...

Rather than removing them, either stain them dark -- as close to the same color as possible -- or just cover them with boards.

Another option: ordinarily I'd not paint brick but in this instance (how they're used), since you clearly don't care much for the look of them, you could paint them white or the trim color for your windows and doors in the room or paint them the same color as the adjoining wall.

what's going on here? I take it you don't have a tile saw to fill in this gap w/cut bricks?

I have to agree, it needs to come down.

a better application would have been on a wall in this vertical layout. like an accent wall.

If you don't tear it down, paint or cover the white vertical corner stripe so it doesn't scream "look at me".

I think the verdict is out, and I will take it down and explore other solutions for the never-ending stains, perhaps oil paints (which i usually hate inside the house). In any cases much thanks to everyone for their constructive criticism.

Can you paint the wall the same as the terra-cotta color? The stand alone white wall is odd.

What type of paint was used on that wall? Builders sometimes (often) use cheap, flat paint, which is impossible to wash. Try painting the wall with highest quality latex paint in an eggshell finish.

I can appreciate what you were trying to accomplish with this. :-)

Part of the problem -- at least for me -- is that the bricks aren't stacked in a natural/logical orientation. If they were laid horizontally, so that they gave the appearance of being structural, I think my brain would have an easier time understanding the column (it would appear solid and less like a veneer). The corners/edges would also have been easier to integrate.

My parents used bricks to build a bookcase. There are dowels going through the holes (and boards) to hold everything together. They were a dark color for years; I'm not keen on the white paint, but after 40 years, Mom wanted a change. (this was taken after she moved out).

If/when you take the brick down, consider saving them to outline a planting area in your yard -- buried but with tops level with the ground and visible.