Fireplace Refinishing

The fireplace had recently been painted dark red.  It was a bad paint job, with paint in the grout many places.  This meant I had to paint the grout as well as the bricks.

I purchased two paint colors, a light and a dark from the brochure.  This is the dark paint!  I was surprised at how light it was, so I went back to Home Depot and asked them to mix something much, much darker.

I used that paint to paint in the grout lines.  It was easy on the vertical part of the fireplace, because the bricks are raised quite a bit from the grout.  But the bottom part is almost flush, so it was hard to keep the lines straight.  After trying for a while, I decided to not worry about staying in the lines.

So then I had to repaint the brick to clean up the grout lines.  This took a little while.

Next, I used a mixture of the dark and light paint and a piece of sheepskin to blot on a third color.  I let each brick dry just a little and then used a wet cloth to rub the color in.

Last, I watered down the darker color and used a sponge to wash all the bricks.  I blotted them with a clean towel.

This is a close up of the final paint.  All but the first layer of paint was done in one day.

Before ... and after.  Now it needs a new mantle and a new firescreen.  More pictures to come!