How to make a painted brick wall look more original?

Here is an article that might help you - https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/natural-looking-painted-brick-an-alternative-to-sandblasting-or-stripping/

sponge paint

It might be easier to sand the brick and see what’s underneath. If you like what’s there, you could put a coat of paint in a color you like on top of white. Allow it to cure well and then sand here and there clear through to brick, leaving a little bit of white showing here and there as well. Sorta like the Shabby Chic Furniture paint style.

Any type of paint for your walls should be fine.

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It is a huge wall and its painted top to bottom solid white, I could never sand it off, I think the only way to get it off would be to use heavy chemical masonry strippers and that would be a big mess and also the odors being indoors too. :( I was thinking of more of a faux finish type of technique maybe?

Hand sanders are not expensive and that would be the easiest way. After you sand you could add drywall mud to some areas to give it an old look and that is real easy to do. No matter what method you use you are going to have to to put some work into it, and it will take some time. Just do a small area to see if you like then move on to the next. By using drywall compound you will use less paint but you can use 3 or 4 different colors and buy the sample jars from one of the big box stores, that will save you money. Good luck.

WAAAAAAAAAY TOOOO MUCH WORK -- just antique it with some paint-- very thin/almost like "dirty water!" Smear it on over the white paint with a rag, or even a sponge, but be careful to NOT leave spongy marks. Try to make it a little darker in places, and lighter in others ... to give it that uneven wall look. Darker at the top will make your ceiling look lower-- be careful! Experiment, you can always paint over it! You'll be amazed at the results. Pick an "antiqueing" color that goes with your room decor colors. Raw umber (an oii-base artist paint, for EXAMPLE, is dark, rich color. DO NOT use that kind of paint though.) The umber always looks good for antiqueing purposes. Be careful, you don't want the wall to just look "dirty!" You want to use a WATER BASED easily functional paint. If previous paint was flat, use that kind to "match". Otherwise if you use an "eggshell" type finish paint, it will have some sheen and reflect a bit of light .. EXPERIMENT-- to achieve the "look" you want! On a large/high wall, and using a ladder BE CAREFUL!!! Like earlier-- experiment down low where you can reach -- if you don't like, you can always re-paint. Let the paint dry, as it will change color a bit! Nice idea. GOOD LUCK!

Decide what colors you would like the brick to be and use a sponge to lightly dab and mingle the colors. Your grout lines would still be white but that could be fixed easily as well.

Once you have the brick painted you can then decide if you like the white or prefer another color. I would do the brick first then firgure out what color would look best for the grout lines since they will be a lot of work to paint.

Can you distress the wall so the white areas are not only reduced, but would add visual interest? Solid white is so boring, but textured white would look awesome.

If the fireplace is too wide or tall for you, drywall the fireplace to the dimensions you want. Then you have less fireplace surface to deal with. Best wishes ☺️