Banishing the Brick!

I posted before Halloween about the playroom fireplace.  It was plain brick and boring and it's been on the to do list for awhile now.  I had a dilema though.  The hubs wanted to pain it white and I wanted to paint it a darker shade of the wall color (Chromium by Valspar)

Here is the before:

It was dirty and I googled ways to clean the brick just to make sure there wasn't anything too crazy that I was supposed to do.  Nope.  Some scrubbing bubbles, a brush, and a bucket of water.  I scrubbed it pretty good and the changed the dirty water frequently but I didn't notice a huge difference.  However, I'm sure my paint stuck better to a clean surface.
I'm a huge fan of priming.  I prime everything.  It takes my project longer to be completed, but I think it's a step that is totally worth while.  Plus priming always gives me an idea of what the item would look like white.

Here it is primed.  It was this step that I knew I was not going to like the white.  

The hubs and I compromised on the wall color.  I really thought I was going to like the dark but if it looked awful, I would have had to eat that argument and I didn't feel like doing that.   I also thought the wall color would be "fine".  Why don't they ever see our vision?  SO wall color it was.  I went and got it's own quart ($13) to make sure I didn't run out.

It honestly was the same color and same finish (I touched up the walls!), but looked really baby blue (two coats).  I did not like it but it took me a couple of days to tell Chad.  Who also didn't like it!  Woot!  Back to Lowes.  I found a darker grey in the same family and had them try to match.  They couldn't, but I didn't need anything specific, just a darker tint to that color.  So needless to say the final product does not have a name.  I was worried about it screaming "I'm a fireplace" but it is what it is.  Two coats later, I love it and maybe one day I'll style it.

 I also painted the "hearth" black oil based high heat resistant black matte.

I hope that when brick fireplaces come back, I'm not in this house, because that is going to be impossible to get back!

Weekend Wrap Up..Buh Bye Now

Our playroom has a brick fireplace.  We had the room painted when we moved in, but weren't real sure what we wanted to do with the brick.  It's not a pretty brick.  Just regular old red clay brick.  I will say here that we don't use this fireplace.  One days we'd love to put gas longs in there but with three littles, I'm not real keen on the idea of anything hot.  I also have a dream picture of what I would want for a fireplace but until we actually use it, and it's not hidden from toys the room changes function there is no reason to spend all that money.

However, it's almost been three years...and I was recently left alone for the night.  So what's a girl (that can't drive and couldn't go anywhere anyway because I had two sick kids) to do..work on a new project of course!  What I did know is that a white mantle was a definite and the hearth part will be black.  I spent five minutes on pic monkey putting those ideas on paper:

My first thought was white.  That is the easiest.  Also very predictable.  But very clean and fresh.  After priming, I was not sold on the white.  This is what the hubs liked.

Then there is the same color as the walls option.  It would blend in better.

I found lots of painted fireplaces on pinterest, mostly darker.  This is where I was leaning.

But there is also the distressed look that I like but this might be too busy for this already very busy room.

So I sent around an email for some thoughts and opinions...What did I end up doing?  You'll have to come back and see!