White Fireplace Makeover

Hi friends! How was your Halloween? It was the first one in our new house and I was convinced that we would have a ton of kids because we live exactly two blocks from a middle school on our right and two blocks from an elementary school on our left. Turns out all the kids must go to the richer neighborhoods or something because we only got like 30 kids total! Sad face. And now we have TONS of leftover candy which is going to be a problem for my hips. No lie.

I’m SUPER excited about this post today because it’s been on my to-do list ever since we moved in almost a year ago. The project only took a day to complete, but it has literally taken me 11 months to get my butt in gear! How embarrassing. I wanted to give the focal point in our living room a white fireplace makeover and this weekend, hubs and I finally got around to it! Here is where we started:

Woof. Whoever lived here before us had tried to paint the brick to look like… well, brick. It had been painted numerous times before that, and I guess the owners wanted to try to get it back to what is was. By thinking that sponge painting and stippling various shades of red and orange would do a lovely job. Womp womp. I mean, it looked okay but the red was just too much for me and it just stood out horribly against the barf green wall (which will be leaving soon, promise!) So hubs and I decided to go for a more classic look with a white fireplace.

The paint we used was Behr Ultra Pure White from Home Depot – this is literally the whitest paint you can get – it doesn’t have any pigment added to it! We wanted a clean and classic look and didn’t want any yellow or blue hues so we just went with the basic white in a satin finish. Talking to the lady at Home Depot, she suggested to use any finish that wasn’t matte because matte would be harder to clean and get ash smudges out of. We didn’t want it to be super glossy so we settled for a nice satin, which gives a more matted look, but with added durability. So if you pick anything from satin to high gloss, you should be right as rain!

Note: when painting your fireplace, your paint needs to be approved to withstand temperatures of 200 degrees Fahrenheit, which most general interior paint is, but check if you are unsure. You only need ‘heat-resistant’ paint if you are painting the inside of your fireplace where the fire is!

We started by taping off the edges of the fireplace that touched the walls and the floor, though since we will eventually be replacing both, we weren’t worried about being super careful. As you can see, we ran out of painters tape so I had to rely on some washi tape to finish the job!

Next was the ‘fun’ and tedious part – painting in between all the bricks. After trying a few methods, like the regular brush below, we found that using a sponge brush was best for getting the most coverage, although we still had to do a second coat in the cracks.

We just rolled the rest with a roller head that was for semi-textured to semi-rough surfaces to get into all the holes and crevices in the bricks. It was pretty easy: Here’s what it looked like after one coat – you can see that the red underneath still bleeds through a little bit. So more paint we added!

Overall we did 2 coats on the spaces between the bricks and 3 coats on the brick faces! We allowed a half hour or so between coats or until the paint was dry to the touch. We just worked on other projects between painting sessions and it worked out just fine!

Et voilà! My white fireplace makeover is complete!

Ohmygoshyouguys. I’m so in love! Everytime I walk into the house I just swoon because my living room is one step closer to looking how I want it to! Next thing to go is the barf wall – we are going to put in a pallet wood wall as soon as we can. The white fireplace just adds such a fresh, clean, and modern look that I just can’t get over 🙂

Mumford says hello! That’s his favorite napping spot 😉

The fireplace grate was graciously given to us by some friends who didn’t need it anymore and all the rest of the elements came from somewhere in my home! Since it’s still fall, I kept some little pumpkins and an autumn printable up to celebrate the season 🙂 The gorgeous wood photo frames came from HomeGoods!

It just feels so much more homey! I couldn’t stop saying to hubby, “It’s like a real, adult, house now!” But seriously. I feel so much more grown up now that I have a classy white fireplace 🙂

What do you think? Do you like brick fireplaces to be au natural or painted?