How To Whitewash a Brick Fireplace
Disclaimer: This post was originally published in December, 2013. I am sharing this on my new site for everyone to read, as well as including another whitewashed fireplace project that I did for a client in 2016.
Our family room has quite a large fireplace and hearth. While the brick was attractive, it needed brightening up. I like the texture and look of brick and didn’t want to paint a thick coat on top to hide it. I wanted to enhance it.
I started to think of the brick houses that I love. Those that have been painted white and left to distress through the years. I love those homes! I thought that this look was what I should try to achieve.
Here is a pic of the fireplace before. I think you can see what I mean about attractive brick but really quite dark and boring. It takes up the entire length of the room…
My husband first installed new wood floors. Again, you can see how dark the room is (we have since installed even newer floors! Post HERE).
After the floors, I decided to just dive in. First, I painted the mantle in white, distressed and waxed it. Then, on to the brick. I was hoping I’d like the result because I would be stuck with it! I made a wash with Annie Sloan’s Old White chalk paint and water (you can use any white chalk paint brand). Here it is being applied.
Technique:
Dilute Annie Sloan Old White chalk paint (about 1 part paint to 3 water) to make a watery wash in a bowl (I used an old tupperware).
Take your brush and dab into a bowl of water and then into the whitewash mix.
Dab/Stipple wash onto the bricks using your dipped brush.
Take a paper towel and dab the excess off.
As you go along, add or remove wash to create an even look and make it as strong or light as you wish.
Oh, my. I think I like what I see!
And, I LOVE how it turned out (really, thank goodness)!
I also painted the dark beams white. This also really brightened up the space.
Here is the room now.
The before and after is truly amazing. The room is now bright and the mantel really pops. I adore the farmhouse, distressed look. My thrift store finds are perfect in the space. Oh, what paint can do!
DECORATIVE PAINT AND WHITEWASHED BRICK BEFORE AND AFTER (October, 2016)
I spent the day today working on transforming a dated brick fireplace. I was doing it for an interior designer’s client in a home in Northwest, DC. The house was the prettiest house. It was originally a Sears Catalog Home and just full of light and charm.
However, the brick fireplace needed help. It had already been painted in a dark, brownish red at some point and the mortar had also been painted in an almost black color. The overall appearance was really dark and dated.
The customer wanted it to look like my fireplace (post above). When I whitewashed my own brick fireplace, it had never previously been painted (as the one above). Also, my brick is the variegated type, meaning it is different colors vs the dark. The variagated brick gives the whitewash a lot of interest as the differing colors pop through.
In order to create a more interesting base coat on this brick fireplace, I added a light coat of Annie Sloan Primer Red over all of the bricks. Using a decorative brush, I painted the mortar in Annie Sloan Old White. I then mixed the white into the red and dabbed it over some of the bricks and added a little Annie Sloan Coco.
I created a whitewash with the Annie Sloan Old White. I used a bowl of water to continually dip my brush into as I applied the wash. I stippled it into the bricks. Bricks are porous (in the past, these bricks had been painted in latex paint and they were still surprisingly porous) and so it took three coats of the wash to absorb properly. I used a paper towel to dab it off as I went along. After it dried, I went back in with the white paint and dabbed it on places. Here is the result! Sorry the pics aren’t the best!
Before and After!
