Painting Fireplace Bricks

As our hardwood floor installation was nearing an end, Mike took one look at the transitions to the fireplace and said "Nichole is not going to like the bricks against that".

I didn't know I wasn't going to like it until he pointed it out, but once he did it was all I could think about.  To add extra pressure, I had to do whatever it was I wanted to do before the transition pieces were being glued, which was in TWO days!  And so the Pinterest search began.  Most of the bricks I saw were painted either white or grey.  Our walls are tan so I thought, let me prime the bricks first, which will give me an idea of what they would look like white.  Before priming I scrubbed the bricks with a sponge so I didn't paint over any residual dirt that was left behind by the previous owners.

I felt like the bricks absorbed more of the primer but overall it was fairly easy and took less than 30 minutes to do.  Next I decided to see what the bricks looked like painted the same color as the wall,  ...

I did tape the fireplace, which you cannot see in the picture, but what you can see is where it peeled some of the mantle paint off on the right.  The painting was much easier after it was primed I must say.  After painting I thought it was kind of ... okay.

This was not the way I wanted to leave it.  After consulting a friend of mine with excellent taste, she suggested doing dark brown to contrast the color on the wall.

At first I was hesitant because it was so different than the lighter colors but now I love it.  Mike also removed the dated accent piece on the mantle and repainted it to cover the peeled paint.

Still would like to replace the fireplace doors because I'm not crazy about the gold accents, but much better than before!