So, the fireplace. Not really sure what the motivation of the previous owners was here. I was convinced the black had to go. I wasn’t sure what we could do about the fireplace itself. Did these ever look good? I dont know. Maggie suggested painting it white. I sort of tensed up. Paint? Stone?

I guess a bit of anxiety about doing something nearly irreversible to the house got to me. It came from the same part that would never paint over wood that isn’t already painted over, and that yells at the past owners for doing that. Was I going to be as bad as them? Once I was reminded that I just asked if it had ever looked good to begin with I was convinced. Some pinterest was pretty convincing too.

I got some white paint and some black high temp paint.  I wasn’t sure what we’d eventually do with the inside of the fireplace, and wanted to be a bit future proof in case we got some kind of fakey fire thing, or just opened up the chimneys at some point in the future.  I painted and painted and painted.  The black was tough to cover- even with the paint+ primer sorta pricey Behr stuff.  I think probably 3 or 4 coats on that.  But not so bad.  The stone was torture.  It soaked it up really well.  I also really didn’t want the stones to look goopy.  It seemed like the whole key to this was getting a good finish on the stone face to retain the details.  Then its a cool white stone fireplace.  Otherwise I’m in the camp with the former owners using my paint weapons to ugly up stuff.  My strategy was this:  Brush on paint too thick on one or two stones, do the next section and then go back and thin out what didn’t absorb with a dryer brush.  It took 3 or 4 coats before it stopped looking yellowish.  Many more on those darker taller stones.  Those were awful (Writing about it now, maybe there’s some type of sealant that we should have put on first to make it easier).  It paid off though.  The stones turned out just like we had hoped.  I painted the inside with the hi temp paint, which covered perfectly single coat.  A warning though: It smells! I’ve gotta leave the floor and open all the windows of the house smells.  I shouldn’t be breathing this lets go out to eat somewhere tonight smells.  It’s bad.

A few  quick coats of black and white spray paint on the logs and log holders and I was done.  Looks really clean, a giant improvement.  Ghost fireplace.