Bare brick / stone walls (currently plastered)

Badger_Lady

Hia,

Well I'm finally moving into my new house and have lots of DIY to get on with...

In my basement kitchen, I would like to get the effect of stripped walls either side of the chimney breast - there will be eye-level fitted cupboards, then just a breakfast bar below (both sides the same), and I'd like to see the walls from the bottom of the cupboards down to the floor.

The actual wall is made from stone but is plastered at the moment (as is the rest of the house) - how easy is it to strip this back, and would I have to do the whole wall (i.e. under the eye-level cupboards too)?

I was watching "Colin and Justin" last night (yeah, I know, terrible but there was nothing else on!) and they created a similar feature in someone's kitchen by "tiling" the wall with slivers of red brick. Looked good on screen, but I'm dubious about the idea of creating a fake brick wall in real life.

Has anyone come across these brick slivers? Do they look any good? Bearing in mind the small area I intend to expose, would this be easier / cheaper than trying to strip and expose the original stone?

Cheers