ideas for bringing fireplace back to life!

[surprisenumber3]

Really don't like fireplace. It is off white surround which is fine and easy to clean but the part immediately in front of fire and around the fire is a horrible papery type material which is supposed to look like marble!

Am decorating soon and would love to do something with it. I suppose I could paint the surround but the nasty papery stuff, what on earth could I do with that??

i had this and painted the fake marble stuff with black enamel paint, then fire surround bright white, looks tons better.

thanks frazzled, what colour are your walls? and what paint did you do surround with? sorry for all the questions but I am the least practical person ever!

my walls are a creamy off white colour, i used eggshell paint, white on the wooden surround and black enamel paint on the horrible fake marble, it does actually look like like an original fireplace now. ,just got a small tin from b and q, i think its hammerite, the sort you can use on fire grates etc.

my actual fire is black so I'm not sure more black would look right??

what sort of fire is it? mine is black coal effect with a bit of brass. i have an original fire in my dining room which is all black and that has black cast iron all around it, so i was modelling it on that when i painted it.why dont you look online at fireplaces and get an idea of what you would like and then work out how to recreate it using paint?

hey mine sounds exactly the same as yours!
Thanks for your ideas, will definitely mention them to DH Thing is, he thinks things are fine as they are but I don't

Will look online too, thank you

Don't suppose you have any pics of your do you? :D

have put pics on my profile. forgot to say had painted chimney breast red, this is the coal effect fake fireplace, the other pic is original fireplace(except surround)

Hi - sorry for late reply! That looks really good! My chimney breast is already red but we will be changing that when we decorate. Our fireplace also comes out in front of the fire, so that marble effect (if you can call it that!), comes out too. I really like your idea though - thank you