white & brite fireplace

Exactly 8 years ago we officially began the transformation of our home. I can say this with confidence as it was during the 2002 Winter Olympics that we first painted the Family Room a butter yellow color... covering the awful wood paneling. Well, it has taken about that long to convince D that we should paint the fireplace. It is a bland red-orange brick that I have never been fond of.

I did get him to agree to paint the cabinets several years ago. And by agree, I mean I started painting it one Saturday morning while he was still in bed. Once he got out of bed there was no going back. Frankly, this idea came from my mom saying "men cannot visualize, they just have to see it". I decided once he saw paint, he would know it was a great idea... and I was right. I will say this is the first time I did something this devious, but in the end he loved it. I think that is when he learned to trust me, and my crazy ideas.

I actually gave up on the painting idea a couple years ago, so I was shocked when D mentioned a few months ago that we should do it. We toyed with building a facade, or even ripping out the old brick and building a new fireplace, but, in the effort of saving time and money, we decided to paint. I was convinced it would work when reading the post on Young House Love.

We used Behr's Paint and Primer in Camembert and it worked great! Only 2 coats needed for full coverage. This sure beats 4-5 coats of separate prime and paint it would have been. We also repainted the mantle and went from this....(recently decorated for xmas)



to this....



Now I have still have some decorating to do, and we are looking to give a little style to the mantel, but you get the idea. I just hope we don't have wait until the 2014 Olympics to paint the wall a new color. I am a little tired of the yellow walls, but shhhhh..... don't tell D yet ;)

I also wish I had a true before picture with the faux wood paneling, dark mantle and brass FP screen (which was spray painted black 8 years ago), then you could really see what a transformation it has been.