painting interior brick

[Ltricgirl]

I have been wanting to paint my ugly brick fireplace for the last year, but am so afraid I will make a mistake. My brick is extremely rough. I wouldn't mind having some of the red brick show through, like in a colorwash style. Should I buy a roller to do this? Should it be a rough nappy roller? I want to do this right. Do I paint the mortar too? I know I will have to use a brush around the edges. Do y'all have the rough brick or is it smooth? No one in my town sells B. Moore. Does anyone recommend another primer. My walls are a seafoam blue and all trim is white. Would white be the best color to use? I don't want blue for sure, but I would like to know what you think.

[robinmm01]

You can use Kills water based white primer and no I didn't clean mine first. You may think just the primer looks nice but I didnt like it. I painted mine a tan color and also painted the grout. You can add a nice effect and sponge on a lighter color just on the brick (not mortor) to get some depth. White is always nice. I would get a satin finish so you can clean it if it gets dirty.


Good Luck!
[)]

"I can do anything I put my mind to!" Robin Mathews

[robinmm01]

here it is . .

"I can do anything I put my mind to!" Robin Mathews

[robinmm01]

Here is a fireplace I did for a neighbor that was painted white and boring. First I used a beige paint over the entire surface with a brush. Then I sponged on moss green and brick red lightly on just the brick surfaces to add depth. Then washed it all with offwhite 1/2 latex paint and 1/2 water with a wipe on and wipe off effect to tone it down and aged it. Looks so much better in person but the photo is the best I can offer. Good Luck

"I can do anything I put my mind to!" Robin Mathews

[Troy]

That looks great, Robin!

Try

[valeriespencer]

quote:Originally posted by Patricia

We recently painted our brick fireplace and it looks fabulous in my opinion. It had never been painted so I started w/ Benjamin Moore Fresh Start primer in white. It is able to handle brick or metal surfaces. After the first coat of primer, I realized that I liked the old look of the primer so I did not even need to add a coat of 'real' paint. Should you want to add a coat of real paint, though, the guy at Benjamin Moore told me to use their regular paint over the Fresh Coat. As I said, though, we did not want the color to be that dense, so we did not try that. Further, we did not caulk or do anything else to fill the holes. This added to the old, sand blasted look which we like. To the honest, the divets in our brick were so deep in some spots, I do not know how you could fill them unless you used a lot of caulk and/or drywall mud.... I have attached a picture of our fireplace for you to see if this is what you are aiming for (excuse the rest of the room, as we are not done remodeling it yet). Let me know how it works out!

Patricia Wallwork