can i paint a fireplace? and how?

Stripping can be done with chemical or with a heat gun and various scrapers and brushes. I personally like to use heat guns where I can, then finish up with the chemical strippers to reduce the amount of chemicals being used.

There's a special fireplace paint somewhere... I think in the vendors section if you go back to Hearth home.

-Kevin

mw said:

my husband and I moved into a fixer-upper house-several months ago-I want to spruce up the fireplace but he keeps carping that it will cost too much and that I can’t paint a fireplace anyway. Well, someone painted it before-so I don’t see why it can’t be done again-any ideas? also is there a good way to remove the paint from the fireplace?

Click to expand...

The best & easiest paint removal product I ever saw was a paste that comes in a 2 gallon bucket I think it was. Maybe get dif sizes not sure. Anyways, you apply the paste, put a paper backing on it, let it sit for a certain time frame 12 hrs or so? I forget. Then peel the paper and with the paste dried and adhered it brings the paint off with it. I believe you can take multiple layers of paint of with it also. My old boss used it in an old victorian home with many layers of paint on the trim, it took it all off to bare wood. I dunno if this would work with masonry or not. Wouldn't hurt to research though. I am sure you could paint a fireplace, better yet, put a nice insert in there and be done with it and get better and cleaner heat from it. My wall (brick) around the fireplace is painted a gawdaweful color from previous owners. I myself will be covering it in cultured stone. Thats just my style though. I suppose if your not moved in yet, you could have it sandblasted/mediablasted also. If its brick, stone etc.
Good luck

My fireplace was red bricks with black mortar, real dull... So I just took some interior paint and painted the mortar a nice cream/beige color and the bricks themselves a mushroom color. It looks awesome I get compliments all the time. And I have a fireplace insert right in the middle of it with no problems whatsoever. Be creative and I would just paint right over the old paint. I tried a a rust color at first and didnt like it anfd then I painted right over it

mw I am in the same boat and have found two options which we are considering. They're not cheap but very suited to use on masonry surfaces including brick although I'm not sure how they would work for existing painted bricks.

One is Keim paint. This is a silicate mineral based paint technology from Europe. Google 'Keim paint' and you will get a bunch of results. There are only two U.S. distributors for Keim paints, one in Delaware, the other in Texas. The other thing I am looking at is pretty cool but expensive. It's a brick tinting system from England called Dyebrick Dyebrick link Look at the customer gallery links for inspiration.

Another site worth checking is Porter's Paints from Australia which has a distributor in the US called the Sydney Harbour Paint Company I think. They make a mineral paint very similar to Keim paint Porter's Paints

Most of these are REALLY expensive compared to latex or oil-based but Keim paints can last for up to 100 years. Good luck

Yeah, look at our sponsor Brick-Anew also....

http://www.brick-anew.com/

you dont need any fancy overpriced stuff. As I stated above I used plain old latex interior paint and I have had it for over 4 years with not a single problem...