Painted Fireplace Makeover – Part Two or all’s well that ends well

Welcome to the second part of the white painted brick fireplace fiasco lovely readers. If however you are new, again welcome, although you may wish to catch up with the story so far in last weeks post. When I woke early on day two, I promise my little heart was pounding its way out of my chest. “You go” I said to Mr M as I waited in the kitchen. I wasn’t too sure I could cope, if the slow drying stain block hadn’t served its purpose. Of course by sending Mr M in first, I had set the stage for childish games at my expense beginning with what I was sure would be, fake terror etched upon his face. Next I figured there would be much tutting and shaking of the head and words and phrases like “I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about this darling…” and “it’s going to be very difficult to get around this one you know…” He returned to the kitchen however with a warm smile on his face announcing how lucky I was that he’d saved the day and declaring he had no idea what we would have done if he hadn’t had any stain block. And do you know…I may just let him have this win. Let’s check out day two shall we?

Of course the stain block did it’s job and hid brown and patchy rather well on the fireplace. You will recall we are pretending the smoke stained wall hasn’t happened. And I also liked the satin finish on the mantle using this acrylic paint. So out came the roller again and I applied a coat of the acrylic to the white painted brick fireplace. There have been so many coats of paint I have now lost count and there is no-one more surprised than me, to still see tiny spots of ‘brick’ poking through…

Then as excited as I was to dress my white painted brick fireplace, I spent some time deciding whether the current brass surround on the mirror needed an overhaul too. Mr M stated that although he’s rather partial to a spot of paint these days, he’s not really too sure it’s necessary to paint everything that sits still long enough. So the mirror remains as is… for now and I was rather relieved to put it back on the mantle and cover up the unsightly wall again.

I spent the next few hours faffing on and around my painted fireplace which brought great comfort and rest to my fast beating heart. Up went the whitewashed stars, mirror and frames and I stacked logs and refilled the kindling box you first saw transformed here. Ok technically speaking I personally didn’t stack or fill, I faffed. I set to creating a yellow theme, previously unheard of from this pink and white gal. And I rather like this spring creation using £1 a bunch daffodils and greenery and twigs from the garden…

Then back in my comfort zone as I played around with romantic pinks, since ’tis the season of love…

And as we appear to be a little way off benefiting from lighter evenings and late afternoon sunshine, I added beautiful fairy lights and a few more candles to help add to the brightness the white painted brick fireplace brings…

I stayed with a pink theme for Valentine’s Day itself simply adding in other pretties and lovelies gathered from around the home.

Mr M presented me with a wonderful bouquet this year. These pale pink roses are some of the loveliest I have ever received and worked beautifully with the daintier dark pink roses in my theme. How clever he is to have known. And in a bid to infuse reality into my romantic floaty theme, I spy The Spotty One photobombing this pretty shot…

And there we have it. Before and after the painted fireplace makeover…

As ever, an inexpensive revamp created from left over paints and materials all waiting for their second flush in the garage. I may have gone a tad overboard with the romantic decoration: February is after all a grey month and I have always enjoyed grey and pink together. And what have I learnt from this project? Research, preparation and the right paint for the job is all that is needed to create a wonderful painted fireplace. Oh that and a large dollop of patience thrown in for good measure. I hope you’ve enjoyed the read and if you are inspired to try your own painted fireplace or something similar, do let me know in the comments box below how you get on and as ever, thank you for being here this week x