You Answered, and I Did It

Walking into our family room the first thing you would probably NOT notice is the dirtiness of the fireplace...well...not since we painted anyways.

Putting clean paint on the walls and removing the popcorn ceiling somehow made the fireplace not as bad.

I tried to clean it. I scrubbed that fireplace good. 

What I was left with was a slightly less dirty fireplace. 

Fireplace 1 point. Me 0.

I threw the question out there as to whether or not I should paint it. That question, posed by someone that paints everything, was probably a bit out of left field. After all...I paint everything. But the fireplace seemed to be harder for me. Maybe it was the finality of the whole thing. Once I painted it there was no going back. And truthfully, had the fireplace been clean, I probably would have left it. I liked that the beige ties into our couches. Plus it feels "true" to the house...If that makes any sense at all.

However the long and short of it is this:

I couldn't stand that it looked dirty.

So I went for it. Once I put on the first bit of paint there was no going back. I was committed.

I decided to paint it with primer first. I wanted to make sure none of those pesky stains came through. When I had done just a little bit I realized two things.

1. This was going to take me Forever!

2. I now had a new choice to make. Dark grout or all one color?

I had decided to paint the fireplace a medium grey. The other neutral walls in our house are grey so I figured it would tie it all together. 

I thought briefly about painting it white, but because of the built in bookcase I thought it could make the room look really lopsided. Almost like steps. 

Tall white bookcase, shorter white fireplace, dark trunk.

After some who-ing and haa-ing I painted the grout a darker grey. I figured this would make it look more like stone, and most resemble the original fireplace, and not look like a big grey blob. I also decided to use a flat paint, to most resemble the sheen of real stone.

The funniest thing about this little make over, besides the obscene amount of time it took, is that no one would ever likely notice.

Without the before and after pictures it is hard to tell.

It definitely looks cleaner.

I almost wish, in retrospect of course, that I had painted it a greige color to help tie in the couches and rug a little more. That being said, I am very happy with it.

Still on the list:

painting inside the firebox-black

removing the ugly pipe

possibly moving the trunk and replacing it with a white cabinet to mimic the height and color of the book case.