AFTER

BEFORE

The longer we live in our house, the more things I want to change and the more projects I come up with. This being one of them. Unfortunately, our living room doesn’t get a ton of light, and I really wanted a brighter room. We painted the walls a light grey which helped, but with all of the darker browns and tans it didn’t really match. So to the fireplace I went!

The steps are simple, but it does take *q u i t e* a long time. So be prepared to dedicate some good hours, but trust me you will be SO happy that you completed this project because it looks bomb.

Materials:

• 1 large painting brush
• 1 medium brush
• 1 small- like for painting a canvas
• 1 gallon of satin white paint that includes primer
• drop cloth
• painters tape
• plastic bag(s)
• a good show/podcast to have on in the background for distraction

**get brushes you won’t mind ruining**

Steps:

• clean stone- brush off dust and wipe down with damp terry cloth
• lay down enough cloth surrounding the area you will be painting so it doesn’t get on the floors
• start painting large areas of stone with large paintbrush, using a lot of paint to really get into the little divets
• use medium paint brush to get in between the stone on the concrete
• tape off the top and sides
• go back in with small or medium brush to get the edges
• tape large bag over the fireplace screen so you don’t get any paint on it
• tape of inside surrounding screen
• paint remainder of stone

TADA!

Celebrate and admire your work and remind your husband multiple times of how FLIPPING AWESOME IT LOOKS!

(also be prepared to dream about it… I totally did)

It took me about 12-15 hours to complete. I would do a little bit each day for a couple hours before dinner.

Upcoming Projects:

Painting built-in bookshelf

hand painting the tile below the fireplace with cool moroccan design