Painting A Brick Fireplace

Painting brick will be a quick and rewarding update, right?

Well kind of...

When I set out to paint our brick fireplace wall, I thought "this can't be too time consuming, it will be a nice and simple."

STEP ONE: Doing some research

Although I was slightly intimidated by trying to figure out the right type of paint to use on brick and the correct order of operations, it didn't seem too bad... I read a few articles of other people updating their brick fireplaces with paint. Most of which seemed pretty straightforward, and their estimated time was 4 hours. Not too shabby.

STEP TWO: Getting the supplies

My best friend agreed to help me with this project, so we set off to the local Home Depot to pick up paint. I knew I wanted the brick to be white, but not a super sterile bright white... More of the color of milk. So we pulled a few swatches and made sure it went with the green color I painted the living room walls already. BINGO!

When I asked the nice guy working the paint counter, he said we should be fine with a standard paint + primer indoor paint, one gallon should do the trick, and just to make sure we clean the brick really well before starting. Simple enough.

STEP THREE: Cleaning the brick

We started scrubbing the dirt off the brick. We each had a bowl with a soapy water mix- we just used the Mrs. Meyers concentrate. One of us used a scrub brush and the other just a rag. This was the step of the project I considered skipping, but I'm so glad I didn't. Those bricks were dingy as heck. The red color hid the grime pretty well, but I wouldn't be surprised if the previous owner hadn't cleaned them in over 20 years.

After spending about an hour scrubbing bricks and swapping out nasty water for new soapy water, we allowed the brick wall time to dry during a break.

STEP FOUR: Painting the brick

This was the simplest part, as it's literally just painting it, but it was the most time consuming. The best way to get coverage was using a small roller for the face of the bricks, and then going in with a brush for the mortar parts. Once the base is covered, then it's just a matter of going through with a paint brush and getting in the holes of the brick.

I'm not sure how many coats ended up going on the brick wall fireplace, but I do know it took 10.5 hours, even with additional help for the first 4 hours of it.

Ultimately, I'm glad I did it. It looks fresh and clean. I would think long and hard before painting it again though. That's a long time to spend painting one thing. I'm also glad I know how long the process is before I started on our exterior, which is at least half brick. I might just end up hiring someone for that project :)

Colors used:

• For the Brick - BEHR ULTRA - eggshell finish - Delicate Lace

• For the Mantle - BEHR ULTRA - eggshell finish - Cracked Pepper