Paint the Inside of Your Fireplace

It’s such an easy update! But did you know you can paint the inside of your fireplace, the firebox? The trick is using the right paint.

We had old yellow brick 60’s brick until yesterday. I took our fireplace from this,

To This!

Or better yet, to this!

How did I makeover the tile too? All this in ONE day? Can’t be true!!!

Oh but it is! Check out how I made the tile surround makeover — and it’s temporary. The perfect solution for renters, for new homeowners still formulating their plans … and their reno funds.

Back to the painting the inside of the fireplace — or painting the firebox:

In our previous house, we installed a vent-free gas fireplace in our basement — and DIY-ed a faux cast concrete surround and flue. With that new fireplace, the brand new firebox was pristine! I knew gas logs did not produce the ash, soot and flames that would naturally age it. Since the goal is to make it look authentic, I aged the interior before we installed it.

Sadly, I only have a few, rather poor quality pics. But hopefully this will give you the idea.

I used Rustoleum High Heat enamel in satin black. With an old rag dipped in the paint and I smudged it on the interior to age it a bit. Not a full coat, just enough to emulate the effects of soot and ash from a real fire.

In our new reno, the upstairs fireplace is quite large and the previous owners used it in its wood-burning mode enough to have a beautiful patina on the back center panel, but the remainder was still the original yellow brick.

We had it converted to gas with a beautiful log set and embers, but I still couldn’t get past that yellow brick!

So I drew on what had worked at our old house. I still even had the remainder of the can of paint – Rustoleum High Heat paint in satin black.

In this case, I already had the patina of years of smoke and ash, what I need was to lose the yellow. So this time around, I brushed it on to cover the yellow brick.

The gas set was already installed, so I had to work around it. Started by moving the small lava rocks that cover the bottom in from the edge and used a sheet of cardboard to protect them from any drips. And I pulled out the majority of the larger smooth stones that we had added to fill the large area.

I worked from the front covering each side and then working from the back corners to the center back. As I got closer to the aged area, I converted more to dry brushing (removing most of the paint from your brush before applying to the brick). This worked to preserve the aged quality of the back and have them merge into one.

This gives the illusion that it was a black interior with the smoke and ash over that.

Getting closer to loving this fireplace wall. We are working towards a new mantel, surround and some bookshelves and storage. The fireplace opening is not centered and a few other obstacles are throwing us curve balls to get the look we want. It’s all a process, right?

Gotta love the process! Hope you’re finding successes along your reno or decorating road too.