against standard practice start painting at the bottom and work your way up, this way you can both stagger the job and also try different patterns and/or maybe first cut out some white paper and glue tac over the parts you want to paint and live with it for a few days till you find the most pleasing pattern..i love painted bricks and it's a gorgeous fireplace, painted or unpainted, in a lovely room

It does look like a beautiful period room and I do understand the dominance of the bricks. I wonder if painting the lower level white won't just make that become a dominant feature. The idea of leaving the upper stepped levels unpainted is good but instead of white perhaps the lower levels could be painted in a shade that matches one of the bricks, not necessarily a bold colour but a gentle colour, or perhaps even try to match the mortar.

It is a big decision so I would suggest going to a paint shop and selecting some colours, Dulux provides A4 paper samples and attach them to the bricks and give yourself time to decide. Also think about the paint finish, textured or not?

Cheers

Hi salcarley, your idea hadn't crossed my mind (so thanks!), but it is the bottom half of the fireplace I find 'dark' , and I'm not sure I could bring myself to paint the top which is lovely old jarrah.

Great idea oklouise, I'll be onto that and will post a pic once I mock it up with paper! :-)

Artistiek Interior Design, I am also intrigued by your idea to consider a different colour, hadn't thought of that either. The bricks are quite textured already, and the surrounding wall is also textured so I don't think I would need to use a textured paint but it's all food for thought. Great ideas!

Love the fireplace but does seem to take over your lovely room some ideas for you to consider, white wash/Paint/ paint the wall behind a soft colour/ paint the fireplace and wall the same. some photos for you

I love light bright and white and agree there are lots of pics out there of pretty painted brick fireplaces, but mostly to cover the ugly or damaged (I hope). Yours is lovely! Original deco? And provides contrast to furniture and deserves to draw the eye. Given you can't really go back once brick is painted (well not easily as far as I am aware...) I would be inclined to change the wall colour (perhaps under the picture rail right along that wall) to a deeper shade in preference to lightening the brick. P.S I have whitewashed our brick fireplace and am considering going with a more solid shade but will prob just cover it in future anyway. I am not regretting this but our starting point was this!

I would also try to live with the new gas heater for a bit first too. When we make a change to our living space it tends to draw the eye more than normal...

scottevie/petapea, don't get me wrong I love brick my house is full of it, . the photos give different examples to paint or not to paint. What I would consider doing is to remove the tall bookcase as it seems to clutter that wall, lower book case/sidetables on both sides with lamps would be a better balance for the fireplace, I would also bring the wall hanging down below the picture rail, love the arm chairs cheers

Hi Scottievie, I don't find your original fireplace yuck at all (especially like the lightness of your original brick!).

I agree my existing brick provides contrast to the furniture, and have wondered how cream armchairs will look against stark white (though they don't look out of place in an otherwise very white room).

I like the idea of painting wall sections a different colour but my apartment is quite small overall (60sqm all up) so white walls throughout keeps the flow from one room to the next.

My hope with the fireplace was to maye kill two birds with one stone- open the room up even more by painting it white, but in keeping some of the brick unpainted not lose the interest and feature of the fireplace (which is Art Deco, 40s-50's I think).

Hi Petapea you mention your place is small but you could consider painting either just the fire place wall or the whole room a colour of your choice up to and including the Picture/Plate rail, this can look really lovely and makes the space feel bigger because of the white above the rail is kept the same as the ceiling, keeping the brick fireplace as is, cheers

scottievie your fire place has some great brick detail, love to see what you do with it cheers

Hi Siriuskey, loved all your photos, they helped me decide prefer clean white to a limewashed look.

Bookcase is just on one side of the fireplace (the other side is more open with an up lamp for ambience!). I hope to one day build book shelves in one corner right to the ceiling, but for now I'll look at opening up more 'free' space in my current bookcase :-)

Siriuskey, I think I'd be more inclined to paint the brick fireplace a different colour (maybe not white but a light tone as someone previously suggested) and keep the surrounding walls white. Might google that look, thanks for all your great input!

Siriuskey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like I was dismissing your help. I love the pics you found for Petapea... I do often try to bite my tongue on negative opinion and answer the question posed. I haven't in this case as I really wanted to give my honest opinion, that I don't think painting it is the best option in this case. I feel it will lose the lovely detail....Can we swap!!! To better answer -I don't like the idea of painting half but would be interested to see the white paper mock-up suggested.

Our fireplace has been damaged by installation of an old gas heater. The base still has the capped off gas pipe and lumpy concrete. Screw holes, really gappy painted quad and a cheap timber mantel. We would like to put in a wood burning stove but the opening is a bit awkward. The back is exposed in hallway and shows some cracks etc in mortar higher up. Will need to check it before we make costly upgrades. Meanwhile it looks like this now (The texture of bricks shows through, but it is not so very orange -with natural tassie oak floors it was a bit much in our opinion). Artwork an original (prep-aged) painting by son ;)

LesleyH, is colour wash like limewash?

Some white brick surrounds similar age to yours

I'd leave the bricks raw, I think it looks beautiful as it is.

Keeping in mind it would have more texture than this, here's my initial mock-up of the white (few different angles).

Hmm, I don't think it achieves the goal of cleaner, modern, open like that. Add some more sheets to just leave the mantel like you proposed?

Hey no offense taken scottevie, I agree that it should be to paint or not to paint, what the mock up doesn't show that is some of the bricks will be white and the other natural, at the moment the mock up makes the white look like it's been rendered which is quite a different look to what you would end up with. By leaving some natural brick it also draws the Plate rail down. I really thought it would be worth while leaving the fire place as is and paint the wall up to and including the Plate rail before proceeding with painting the fireplace, much easier to re paint a wall /s and I still think the wall hanging is in the wrong place, more eye level.

Scottevie your fire place turned out really well

scottevie, loved the painted Deco fireplaces, certainly confirms that it's all or nothing

scottevie, loved the painted Deco fireplaces, certainly confirms that it's all or nothing if it was my house I would paint it white to suit the style of house and lighten things up cheers,

Have you tried changing the colour digitally on a photo first. My nephew who is a graphic artist, mocked top the tiles in kitchen before we committed to a bold choice.

I'm thinking now that the shape of the fireplace will be lost somewhat if I paint it out entirely. I have another idea though- what if I just whiten the mortar instead? The current mortar is a muted cream/tan colour, if it were white might this lighten the look and also and make the feature brick pop even more? Here's an example (can't find one of a fireplace yet):

This is an interesting idea to reverse a painted fire place if you change your mind

http://www.prettyhandygirl.com/painting-brick-fireplace-from-white-to/

Thank you for all your generous and constructive comments, they helped me decide I'm going to keep the existing brick but look into repointing the mortar a lighter colour to freshen the old girl. :-)

Final post! :-) Here's my DIY mortar pointing (used florist tape, it worked a treat!)- any preferences for the left (original) versus right (updated) look, and if so, why?

Nice!

I like the updated version! I am glad you decided not to paint the bricks.

Looks good!

problem solved well done