Whitewash Painted Brick Fireplace

Scary before picture

Here is the brick fireplace during the remodel.

You can clearly see where the old brick mantle was. We replaced the floor in our house and added a piece of baseboard, but the ugly brick was still exposed along the bottom of the fireplace.

Mix Your Whitewash

I liked the character of the brick but wanted to cover the ugly discolored brick at the bottom of the fireplace.

So I decided to try and whitewash the brick. I hoped it would cover enough while still letting the character of the brick shine through.

Traditional whitewash is a 50/50 mix of paint and water. I went with less since I wanted good coverage.

I estimated my mix was closer to 3/4's paint and 1/4 water.

You can use any white latex paint for whitewashing but oil-based paint will not work.

I would recommend this brick paint from Behr which is available at Home Depot.

Clean and prepare the area

Most of the brick I was able to clean by wiping with a damp rag.

However there was some soot on the bricks closest to the opening. I used an all-purpose cleaner on a rag in that area. Then be sure to follow that with a few wipes with just water so no cleaner remains on the brick.

The only thing you need to do to prepare is to tape any area you don't want covered in paint. be sure to use a drop cloth because the whitewash is quite runny.

Whitewashed brick

I liberally applied the whitewash mixture to the brick and let it dry completely.

I ended up going over it again because I didn't get enough coverage the first time. If I didn't have the discolored bricks I think one coat would have been plenty!

White painted mantle

I used full strength white paint for the solid wood mantle. I eventually want to add some moulding to it to modernize it, but for now this works.

I hope you are inspired by our fireplace transformation! Would you ever try a whitewashed fireplace?