Any regrets painting your brick fireplace?
kitchen4us
14 years ago
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Comments (11)
hyperwoman
14 years agopfmastin
14 years agoRelated Discussions
Any reqrets painting fireplace or f/p hearth white? Maintenane?
Comments (11)In a previous home, I painted an UGLY brick fireplace and added a white surround I ordered online and it was the best thing I ever did. It changed the look of the room so much. As far as cleaning, it was very easy. When I vacuumed I just ran the vacuum tool over the crevices. I found that only the crevices toward the floor accumulated dust but we had a walkway in front of the fireplace and a yellow lab so that area just accumulated dust more than anywhere else. But even then it wasn't that bad. I never had to do anything with the crevices higher up. I think if you know you want to make a change and want to consider cost, painting it is a quick and easy solution. I went with a semigloss paint and found it looked more like a satin finish on the brick. As far as tiling over it down the road, I don't know whether that would make it more difficult or not. I wanted to attach some pics for you but they were from about 8 yrs ago and I didn't own a digital camera then so they aren't readily available for posting!...See MoreThinking About Painting Brick Fireplace Metallic!
Comments (51)The entire painting process took 4 days. I think I cleaned the bricks the weekend before I began painting. Our entire wall is brick, so I would think yours will take less time. I think I started painting late in the day on a Thursday (primer), finished the primer Friday night, first coat of paint on Saturday, and finished up with the second coat of paint that Sunday. DH and I scrubbed the bricks with a powdered cleaner mixed with water (TSP-PF). The primer (BM First Step, 100% Acrylic; tinted grey), took about a day and a half (maybe a day and three-quarters) to paint--DH helped briefly if I recall. I think I only used a brush, but might have rolled it on as well--I forget. It really soaked in so it was slow going. We did one coat of primer. For the first coat of paint I just used a brush (don't remember if or how much DH helped with painting the first coat). Lots of nooks and crannies, crevices, and mortar lines, lots and lots of mortar lines needed to be filled or covered with paint. The second coat went much faster. DH used a brush first, to paint all the mortar lines, and then I rolled on a decent coating of paint over the bricks using a really, really thick, fluffy roller cover (thanks to the recommendation of a professional painter who saw me eyeing the paint supplies at HD--I don't think that my go-to paint store even had a roller cover that fluffy!). Then of course, there were the touch-ups. Where our side walls meet the bricks, there are gaps all up and down at those junctures. Combine those gaps with the wavy, bumpy brick wall, and you can well imagine how impossible it is to tape the bricks in such a way that no paint gets through. What's the opposite of a clean sharp line? LOL Luckily I'm tenacious (and more than a wee bit detail-oriented!), so I spent whatever time it took to touch it all up using my trusty array of small (and even smaller!) brushes. I think I did one side of the wall/room one day, and the other side the next. FYI, small unpainted holes and spots might mysteriously appear after you've painted the brick (even weeks later)--the paint seems to form a bubble over or around cracks, crevices, and holes and then sucks in as it dries, leaving bare brick, or primer exposed. I went around with a tiny paintbrush, filling-in and covering up all of those spots with the black paint. I touched up all the mysteriously appearing holes/spots, as they appeared (or whenever I noticed them). We used BM primer tinted grey as I mentioned (not as dark as I'd have thought it would be, and I would have liked it darker), BM Aura paint, matte finish, in Black, just plain old BM Black. Love Aura matte! We used Purdy XL angled (and maybe flat, as well) brushes. I don't know the name of the roller cover--might have been a Purdy, but it looked like a thick and fluffy wad of sheep's wool on a roller....See MorePainting Brick Fireplace - Another One!
Comments (50)We had the hearth removed...I can paint a room, anything more than that I call the pros! It left a place in the floor that needed covering...so you have that to consider. We were redoing the floor anyway - we had 3 different bricks going on in there - the floor was brick, the hearth was a different brick, and the wall was white-painted brick. (2 years on, we still refer to this room as the "brick room." Guests are baffled.) Plaster isn't flammable, so it can run right up to the firebox. To get it up, they firred up the wall, put in chicken wire, then started plastering. There's probably 1.5-2 inches of plaster on there. I'm sure it would chip off if someone wanted to get it off, but if you ever think you want to reverse it, I'd stick to sheetrock. I honestly don't know that it's a DIY - but many are more adventurous than I on that front. Most painting contractors can do this kind of work. Even up close, it looks pretty much like sheetrock. We chose the plaster so that I could go right up to the firebox, and then put the walnut cabinetry over it to emphasize the geometry of the space. Not for everyone, but this is my forever home....See MoreThink I'd regret a Two Story Red Brick Fireplace?
Comments (46)The only 2 story fireplaces I like are stone and are super wide. You need the width to keep the height proportional or it will look like a skinny strip of stone. I don't know what style house you have but if it was my style I'd do that whole fireplace wall in that horizontal plank wainscoting. I've included a link with an example. We upgraded from brick to stone and it was about 400-500 more. I've attached a picture of ours. We didn't do a solid piece of stone for the hearth to save money. Here is a link that might be useful: Horizontal plank wall...See Moreingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
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kitchen4usOriginal Author