Painting Brick Fireplace – From White to Beautiful Brownstone
This is the first in a five part series on renovating our living room:
1. Faux painting brick over a previously painted white brick fireplace (this post)
2. Lightening up a room in 5 steps
3. Painting decorative graphics on a wall
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and living to tell about it!)
5. Installing Heart Pine Floors and the Final Reveal
I know the trend lately is to paint fireplace brick white. Especially if the brick is an ugly bright red or some other ugly color. I’m pretty sure that is why our fireplace was painted in the first place.
Painting Brick Fireplace
But, the fact that our fireplace, mantle and the built-in bookshelves on both sides of our fireplace are white, made for an overwhelming amount of white on that one wall. I thought about painting the mantle, but only briefly. I really wanted the warmth and contrast of bricks to set off all the white in our living room.
I stumbled across a few websites showing painted brick here and here. Then I thought, “If someone can do it, then there is a 95% chance that I can do it too!”
I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but in the end I am amazed by how real it looks. And, how easy it was to do! The true test came when I fooled the builder of our house (he has lived on our street for over 30 years) into thinking I had stripped the paint off the bricks! Sweet success.
This is a relatively easy project. It took several hours, but can be done in sections.
Painting Brick Fireplace Materials Needed:
TSP cleaner
Scrub brush for use with TSP cleaner
Drop cloth
Newspapers
Painters Tape
Paint Roller and Tray
Stiff 2″ paint brush
Car wash sponge or large 6″ x 3″ sized sponge
Spray bottle with water
7 paper plates
Rags for clean Up
Acrylic Paint (see below for colors)
Before you do anything, buy some TSP (tri-sodium phosphate) cleaner at the hardware store and follow the directions to clean your brick. Be forewarned that you may actually like the color of your bricks once they are clean and dry! If you still hate the color, proceed…
After working up a test board by playing with several color combinations, I chose a warm brown brick color. I also tweaked my mortar color before painting it on my fireplace.
I covered the mantle and bookcases by taping newspapers to them. Then, covered the floor with a drop cloth.
I mixed up a small container of my mortar color. I used some leftover latex satin taupe paint from our other house and added some black and a little dark brown to achieve the perfect mortar color.
My color looks like this warm gray cement color:
I painted all the mortar areas between the bricks with a 2″ paint brush.
As the mortar color dried, I mixed up a bucket of my base color for the bricks. Then poured it into a paint tray.
Then, I laid out my seven paper plates and filled the first one with a deep chocolate oops paint (Valspar Latex Eggshell Chestnut).
And poured a half dollar size of the following colors onto the other plates (one color per plate).
I used a paint roller to roll the base color onto small 3′ x 3′ sections of my fireplace. (Don’t worry if the paint doesn’t soak into all the grooves. Some of the white showing through made my bricks look old and rustic.)
While the base color was still wet, I covered my sponge with the Chestnut color. Then dipped the sponge into one or two of the brick tint colors. I sponged one brick at a time using the same color tints sporadically around the wall. Keeping the brick colors varied and random make them look real!
When the sponge needed to be reloaded with paint, I began with the chestnut color first, then added one or two new color tints to the sponge. You will have to refill the paper plates as you use up the paint.
I kept working in small sections, to be able to work while the base color was still wet (use the spray bottle of water to lightly wet the bricks if it dries too quick).
The best part was that if I didn’t like a color, I could go back over it and try a different tint. Notice how I randomly dispersed the darker brown bricks. This is key to having a realistic look.
On the hearth I had to press more gently with the sponge since the mortar lines on our hearth were almost level with the bricks. I kept a wet rag near by to wipe up any wandering brick paint.
Notice how the white specks showing through really make the bricks
look like they are re-claimed and rustic.
And for those wondering how long this took. Including the prep work (cleaning, taping, mixing colors) it took about 5 hours total. Not too bad since I’m a night owl and could watch DIY network while painting!
Next up in the series: 5 Ways to Lighten up a Dark Room.
Followed by: Painting Decorative Graphics on Your Wall.
And I saved the best for last (coming soon): Installing Antique Reclaimed Heart Pine Flooring
I’m a new homeowner and have a white painted brick fireplace that we were trying to figure out what to do with when I stumbled across this page. You are my new hero. So cool. We are excited to try it out.
Matthew, glad I could help! I hope you send me a picture when you are done ;-). BTW, we are going on 3 years now and it is still holding up beautifully. A few nicks in the paint on the hearth where I dropped things, but you really have to look hard to see them, especially because it chipped down to the brick itself.
Getting ready to get started on this project. I didn’t look closely enough at your materials list and bought a “natural sea sponge” from the paint section of my local hardware store. It is about the right size, but the sponge holes are more sporadic and a little deeper. Will this work, or should I take it back?
The square sponge just made it easier because it matches the shape of the brick better and has the corners on it. But, you can make do with the sea sponge.
That is absolutely awesome and exactly what I was looking for! Thank you for sharing this! Beautiful!
I purchased a small “project home” and ranch a few months ago. It has a double sided fireplace, and a half brick wall that seperates the library and kitchen. All the bricks were painted white. I first painted it brick red, what a mess – it looked like a cartoon. Than, I saw your website, followed your directions, painted it. It is beautiful! And I had alot of fun doing it. My contractor even asked if I stripped the paint to the original brick! Thank you so much for your guidance, pictures, and colors.
Awesome! I just started painting my fireplace then I found this post! I thought I was the only one who thought of this Lol! Everyone paints their fireplace white and I hate it!! Mine is white too but it won’t be for long!!
Thanks for posting this it gave me more ideas and directions!!
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for, especially the colors that you use (no one else seems to list the colors!) I’m hopefully going to start this project this weekend… I’m so excited, though I think I”ll need to tape off the mortar after I paint it, because my brick and mortar are even 🙁 But your tutorial is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for, and I’ve been looking for about a month!
One question, though: Why does the sponge need to be so big if you’re doing one brick at a time?
Thanks for this great post! I used it as a reference for my own fireplace remodel, which you can see on my blog here:
http://foodwineandhome.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-update-ugly-fireplace-on-budget.html
You are very talented and this is a great blog!
Ok, one last question…the same brick that is on the fireplace is on the other side, and visible in the entryway/foyer…if you stained it on one side, would you worry about it on the other side? (It goes ALL the way up to the 2nd floor ceiling…lots of work there…). Thanks for your wisdom!!
Thank you for the excellent tutorial, and the great idea! I’m going to try it this weekend. Wish me luck, please!
I like to consider myself a pretty handy girl, too. Your website really gives me a lot of inspiration and confidence! Painting bricks really is a “wow”! I’ve been wondering about painting bricks on a concrete retaining wall next to our driveway; it is about 4 feet high and 20 feet long! I’m so happy that you posted this tutorial because now I feel like I have an even better idea of how to start. Thank you so much for sharing all of your handy experiences!
Dianna, thanks for your comment. Always nice to meet other pretty handy girls!
I’m not sure how well paint will hold up on exterior brick, but I’m sure you already thought of that and can consult with some paint experts for some strong exterior paint ;-).
Brittany
Hello! I came across your entry on painting the fireplace during one late night search. This was following a few weeks of staring down my poor choice of painting over our brick with a horrid color. I followed the steps and it looks so much better. Thank you for sharing, I never would have thought of that. I’ve impressed myself with your help!
Meg Van Horn, Washington
You are hired! I have a horrid white painted brick fireplace and no time or patience to complete this. Yours looks WONDERFUL!
I have read this post before, but it is funny how just NOW do I need this info. I may be doing this one my back splash. It has brick that is painted white. The chimney of our old farm house comes through the kitchen and we put faux bricks on it and whitewashed them. I now want to white wash our white bricks. So the first step is turning them back into colored bricks. Thanks to you….I can do it!
I love it!! My fireplace is similar, where it is set in to the bookshelves. I wanted to ask, how deep is your mantle? Is it flush to your shelving, or does it stick out? Our shelves stick out about 7″, making for a shallow mantle (we need to put one up). Thanks for your reply!!