My client Julia recently moved into a new home and has been in the process of updating the look of the interior. The result of her upgrades created a bright, clean open area in which the kitchen, dining area and living room flow together in one space. Julia’s color choices nicely compliment the openness of the space, with neutral grey walls, warmer and lighter grey accents, white trim and dark brown wood.
While all of this works beautifully, the dated, dark and soiled bricks of her fireplace looked out of place and immediately drew attention.
To address this, Julia and her designer came up with the idea of whitewashing the brick using a light, warm grey to tie it in with the rest of the room. Doing a wash instead of painting the fireplace helps maintain some of the character and color variance of the brick to keep the look interesting while still helping it to blend with the space.
With this decided – I was on to making it happen!
Since the fireplace is no longer active, I was able to address the firebox as well as the hearth for a consistent look to the entire fireplace. After looking at different examples with Julia, we decided on a more opaque approach to cover up the bricks more than letting them show through – but still keeping it transparent enough to show the variation of the brick. To make this happen, I experimented with different paint-to-water ratios until I got it just right for the desired effect.
With the project done, the fireplace now blends perfectly with the room while still maintaining some of the character and interest of the brick. Most importantly, Julia “love love loves” it!!
Below is a before and after -
Enjoy,
Jason
The fireplace before…
and after!