Painting a brick fireplace?

[SeanPencil]

We are the proud owners of the World's Ugliest Fireplace. It is red brick inside and out, with the same red brick forming the hearth. The bricks are black inside from soot, and the outside ones forming the surround are a bit faded, plus there is a crack in the cement on the hearth.

I'm thinking I'd like to paint the whole thing, is it difficult? I'm guessing it's messy. I was thinking of doing the inside black and the outside a v pale grey or neutral eg F&B Skimming Stone.

I'm afraid I hold the crown for World's Ugliest Fireplace Owner! I'll let you hold onto it until tomorrow when I can put a photo up for comparison though

Sympathies and commiserations - I hate mine and have no idea how to transform it. It would be a major job to rip it out and I'm not convinced by painting over it - can look even worse from some pictures I've seen online.

If ours weren't so big I would plaster over it.

Commiserations Rumpy. We can't afford a new one, but I really want to improve it as we're going to be putting the house on the market.

Ours is a weird shape too, it's curved at the top, pizza oven style, and protrudes out of the chimney breast. Grim. It's not even in a nice old character house.

Is yours one of those floor to ceiling brick chimney breast jobs? Please tell me it has inbuilt shelving.

This is harmless enough.

Is this yours, Rumpy?

Not too difficult to paint. You could do more preparation than we did with the bricks but we just cleaned them, then ended up doing 3 coats of primer and two of emulsion (Just Walnut - Dulux ). Looks good - much better than the vile 80s red brick fashion statement we had before!!

I actually prefer the second photo to the first!

That white one looks horrific IMO.

If you are only doing it to sell them I wouldn't bother- different people have different tastes.

Ultimately both fireplaces above need major work- painting over the problem doesn't change that.

We did paint ours in our old house. I wasn't sure but DH was pretty insistent. FWIW, it looked a lot better once it was painted.

Mumsnit, did you use the fireplace after you painted the inside? I'm guessing you need to use special fireproof paint...

We left the bricks inside unpainted as you can't really see them - we have a naice 80s fake coal gas fire arrangement which is neither use nor ornament

I prefer 80s brick to painted brick (I speak as the owner of an 80s brick fireplace adorned with a gopping outset gas fire, too).

Local fireplace shop quoted £2k to rip out and replace with a nice but boring gas fire and oak fireplace, so we are ignoring it for now as I don't have that spare right now....

Here is our monstrosity!

I've never considered painting it though.

We painted our vile tiled fireplace with stone paint and it's amazing. Look up Stonelux paint - you'd never know that it wasn't real stone

I don't really like painted brick and it's a real pain to remove - I spent months doing it in our old house. If you're selling anyway then could you just make the rest of the room bright and neutral and let the buyers decide what to do with it?

That fireplace truly wouldn't bother me happy I'd be far more irritated by the picture frame that doesn't look central

Happy, if I had one of those I'd stick a little gas stove in it and be very pleased with it!

The house before this one had a fireplace made from the same crazy paving that was in the front garden. Exactly the same. Lordy knows how they got it to stay up on the walls but the plasterer who got rid of it went straight onto an u planned holiday once it was done.

Everything is a bit wonky in our house we are working on it! I don't really mind that fireplace too much, except there are bits where the previous owner painted the grout (?) white (in the middle upside down V bit)

Rumpy You only hold it because I replaced mine - 14 years I put up with it (plus our previous house had a brick fireplace too). Oh and the gas fire - well what can I say.

Sorry happy, that sounded rude, I just meant it as another example of people having different preferences, therefore not bothering to do anything with a fireplace for the sake of selling.

I hate things not being symmetrical/ central but I have a friend who deliberately ensures things aren't central etc.

Here's my hideous offering. It just looks dirty all the time, the hearth is stained and it's impossible to clean as it's unsealed red brick.

Leave it alone

Trying to do anything with unsealed, very discoloured brick will end badly IMO.

It's clearly a working fire- even if you did paint it, it would still get dirty when used as the biggest dirty bit is the actual fireplace.

Brace yourselves! It's 8ft wide with 2 tasteful pillars built in at each end (to display what?), tiled base and wooden mantelpiece. HIDEOUS!

(Please ignore the dead poinsettia, dust and KNex constructions.)

That's not so bad. I wouldn't bother if you are selling. I would fill it with a beautifully laid (unlit) log fire for viewings.

What's above it? And to the sides? Is it the main focal point of the room?

You might be best off painting the walls and hanging a dramatic poster over it.