View Full Version : OT:Painting a fireplace?
Karenn
10-10-2005, 09:54 PM
Anyone ever done it? In many ways, it pains us to think of defacing natural brick, but our fireplace is truly ugly and we're ready to take the plunge. We're thinking of doing something like this [http://www.brick-anew.com/]. Has anyone tried this? Any other tips?
No advice, but we have the same problem too.
That picture looks pretty neat. I am curious to hear more about it. Please let me know if you do go through with it and how you like it.
THanks
jennifer_r
10-11-2005, 07:13 AM
Don't know much about brick painting but I do know there's other options out there as well - if you want to spend more money you can "reface" it with stone/fake stone. My cousin did that and it looked much better - couldn't even tell that is was simulated stone.
Jennifer
Mom to:
Christopher 12/29/89
Adelaide 8/23/04
And another DD arriving end of October!
wagner36
10-11-2005, 10:56 AM
Have you tried cleaning it first? I know that sounds kind of silly, but we have a 100 year-old house, and we cleaned the bricks with some sort of acid (well, my dad did - I freaked out when he said acid and packed up for the day), and now it looks quite nice. It's still not my favorite color of brick, but a vast improvement. A friend from work paid $5k to have his small fireplace stripped, so I don't think I could paint it.
If you have a new house, though, the cleaning wouldn't help.
chlobo
10-11-2005, 11:03 AM
We have the same problem. We plan on cladding the brick in plywood & mounting a flat panel above the hearth.
Sillygirl
10-11-2005, 11:21 AM
My parents painted their brick fireplace a nice cream to match the walls a little better. Made the room look much more cohesive. They also installed gas logs at the same time, though, so they didn't have to worry about soot. Anyway, it looked great.
kristenk
10-11-2005, 01:27 PM
We painted our fireplace and are thrilled that we did. Our brick had already been, um, "enhanced" by prior owners. I have no idea what they did, but the brick was sort of shiny and really, really, really ugly. I had a few reservations about painting over natural brick, but, really, in our case, our natural brick had vanished years ago! :)
We started out using latex Kilz primer to cover over the brick and mortar. Brick really soaks up paint, so definitely use primer or you'll go through tons of paint. I think that we did 2 coats of primer (or it might have been 3). Then we just used another latex interior paint and painted over everything again. I think that we only needed 1 coat of regular paint, but it's all a blur! Originally, I wanted to have the mortar look different than the brick, but I decided against it after we saw the results with just 1 color. It seems like the paint makes all of the brickwork fade back a little and make the mantle stand out a bit more.
As far as hints go, be prepared to use lots and lots and lots of paint. Don't use really nice paint brushes for the job b/c they get destroyed when you're trying to get paint in all of the nooks and crannies. Plan on it taking longer than you think it will! Good luck!
Karenn
10-11-2005, 08:28 PM
Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm still not sure what we'll do. The brick is actually pretty clean- it's white! It's just "classic" 1979 white with black mortar. I think I've decided it's the mortar that I really don't like.
It's nice to be warned that we will need lots of paint if we do decide to paint.
Asha, I'll let you know if we try "brick a new."
houseof3boys
10-12-2005, 07:44 AM
We are still in the process of painting our brick downstairs in our basement. It was filthy and after many attempts at cleaning it with TSP and some brick cleaners, we had to! The brick was an ugly reddish color and we painted it chocolate brown and even painted the grout lines a tan color. The walls are the same color so it looks really pulled together. I don't know if I have a before pic but I could take a pic of it now if you want. We still need to touch up some spots on the bricks since it does take quite a few coats to cover.
We tried to paint it a brick red color but it was obnoxiously loud and a little too fake brick looking so that's why we decided to go modern and paint it a "regular" color.
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