Our fireplace was totally fine – really, some cleaning and cute decor, and it would have been perfectly fine. So, we completely changed it. I really love natural brick, but since it was already painted when we bought our house, I quickly decided that it needed to be painted black. And once I found an antique mantel that I just adored, the plan was set to remove the current mantel and extend the brick to the ceiling. Today, I’ll show you how our painted black fireplace turned out (I’m in love) and give you a few tips on painting yours.

I love a good before/after, so here’s where we started…

And here’s where we are now… so much better!

We had the brick work done because we weren’t sure about our own masonry skills, but I did the painting myself, and it was time-consuming, but easy. After the brick was extended it looked like this (scary!). If you end up in this boat, once painted, I promise you, you cannot see any weird paint lines from the fact that part was painted before and part wasn’t.

For the most part, it really just takes time and patience to get the paint in all of the little nooks and crannies of the brick, but here are a few important tips.

• Clean brick first to remove as much loose debris as you can.
• After cleaning, seal brick (I used a masonry sealer from Sherwin Williams). You just paint it on.
• When painting, I used a combo of rolling and brush painting. The quickest approach seemed to be rolling first and then brush painting where the roller couldn’t get to. Get your mind right; you will need at least two coats. I did three. If your paint is flat, it really has to dry for you to see missed spots.
• Get a roller with the longest nap you can get (I used 1/2″).
• Use flat paint – it just looks better on a textured surface. Ours has held up fine thus far with two kids that like to play on the fireplace.
• If fireplace is on a carpeted surface, just “smoosh” down the carpet as much as you can and tape off with painter’s tape. I put a tiny lip of tape onto the fireplace to really seal the edge. Since you smooshed your carpet down, once you remove the tape, it should cover the edge of the paint.

Here is the finished fireplace without all of the decor. The paint color is Sherwin Williams Caviar.

And there you go – a pretty easy update that makes such an impact. I already have plans to use black in other rooms of my home because I love how this transformed our living room. I hope I’ve inspired you to go bold on something today!