Fireplace Brick Refresh

 

The fireplace in our living room appeared to have never been modified since the day it was installed. The brick color was actually a natural white'ish' stone and had not been painted. The style of the brick felt outdated to me and the color was washed out.

I knew I didn't want to paint the brick a brighter white since I just painted the cabinets that color. I also wanted to make a statement with the color I chose (please don't mind the Halloween decorations).

I started by cleaning the whole fireplace with some good old fashioned soap and water. It really was just dusty, no soot to be found. I am guessing the previous owners never really used this fireplace. I trimmed out what I could and then applied a primer base coat to every brick not covered by the various built overs.

The color I chose was Sherwin William Mega Greige. I went with it because I wanted a grey but something that would also compliment and brown undertones on the hearth and the built in mantel. I applied 2 full coats of this color and had to do a bunch of touch-ups after that since the stones were so uneven and there were are a lot of shadows to work with. 

I was very pleased with the updated and much cleaner looking bricks now. I also like the contrast between the brick and white cabinets. Now that I know how easy this project was I am thinking down the road I will want to go even darker and pick a grey that pops even more.

Another quick easy update we made was replacing the 50 year old fireplace mesh screen. It was super easy just ordered a replacement screen from Amazon and attached.

This project only took one weekend and cost me the price of the paint + the mesh screen which added up to around $100.