The fireplace in more detail

I'm blogging and drinking wine. You have been warned.

I wanted to spare the length of the previous post, and do all the talky talky in this post.

I never hated my fireplace, but I never liked it. It was this thought right there that made me take the plunge.

Before:


PREP
My fireplace was dirty. There was grout that would just fall off if you looked at it the wrong way. Brick is tricky like that, because it takes more work than running a vacuum over it (although, don't worry, you have to do that too).

1. Use sandpaper. You aren't using sandpaper to rough up the brick, you are using the sandpaper to get all the crap out. During this process, I recommend focusing mainly on the grout regions.

2. Vacuum. Now it's time to vacuum, to get all the loose nasty out.

3. Wipe down. I used several damp paper towels over it, to further clean it.


PAINT
I decided to use the same white paint I have been using everywhere else in my house – Ralph Lauren's Frost in semi-gloss. I wanted to stick with semi-gloss, because the brick would suck up a lot of the shine to it and it would be easier to clean.

The brick on my fireplace is very textured and rough, because of this I didn't use a primer. But if your brick is of a smoother quality I would recommend one.

Once I was done painting, I moved on to caulking bricks that were cracked.


THE SCREEN

Addressing the screen was the scariest part of this project for me. I decided to take my friend Leslie's advice and spray paint everything indoors, like she did on hers.

When picking a spray paint – make sure you are using one that is heat resistant. Sure, it doesn't come in as many fancy colors, but it also doesn't set your house on fire. (Food for thought).

Here's my screen all taped off and ready to go:

Unfortunately, I'm a moron and got the spray paint on my feet and neglected to realize it. And of course I walked around the family room, leaving a nice film of spray paint dust everywhere. So, if you are wanting to spray paint indoors – stay on your plastic tarp.


THE SHELVES

While it's might be hard to tell in this photo, the shelves looked terrible once the fireplace went white. Like everywhere else in the house, the previous homeowners were a fan of beige with a yellow tint. When you pair this with white, the beige transforms into a pastel yellow.

Once the shelves went white, I painted the background a different color for a pop.


After:

Let me know if you have any other questions. :)