Another house, another brick fireplace.
Our last home had one as well and that was the first time I tried whitewashing brick. I fell in love with the result, so I knew I wanted to do the same thing at the new house.
Before shot of the fireplace. This was mid reno so the carpet had been pulled up already.
Shot of the room the day we closed on the house! You can check out all the before pictures of the house here!
The carpet had been torn out and I decided to whitewash the fireplace before the new floors went in so not to worry about making a mess. In most cases your floor will not be torn up, so make sure to prep the area first by covering your floors to protect from splatter.
Next, I took a wire brush and rag and just lightly scrubbed and cleaned it knocking off any loose debris and getting the spider webs off. Yes, spider webs…have I mentioned how rough the house was when we purchased it??
I had read tons of tutorials to try to find the perfect mixture and techniques to create that perfect whitewash effect. This is the process I found worked best for me:
- I purchased a quart of white ceiling paint. Any white paint will work, total I spent on paint was around $9.
- I also purchased a small, clear 2.5 quart bucket for around $2 and used that for my measurements. The combo I used was a 4 to 1 ratio. 1 part paint to 4 parts water. It should be pretty watery.
- You can use a sponge or brush to apply the paint to the fireplace. My preferred method is using a brush. Start by brushing on paint small sections at a time. And make sure to have a rag ready.
- This is where it depends on how you want it to look. Brush the white paint on and immediately wipe it off to your desired look. If you wipe too much off, you can always add more paint.
AFTER!
As you can see, there are some spots where I could go back and add more paint, but I was happy with how it turned out! This again is totally up to you! You may like more white or more red to show through, just play around with a small section and see how it dries before painting the whole thing.
The finished product with the mantle my dad built for us and our TV hung. This was the only spot in the living room for it to go so I just have to work around it!
I love this mantle so much! We shopped around for something similar, but I could not find exactly what I wanted. Leave it to my dad to bring my vision to life!
So that is how I updated our 1970’s brick fireplace! Pretty easy and fairly inexpensive, my favorite kind of project! I hope this was helpful in some way for you and would love to hear if you have any tips or tricks for painting brick!
If you found this post helpful, I would love for you to share on Pinterest! 😘
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