I’ve been dying to give our fireplace a makeover for a lonnnnnng time now. I have despised the look of our grungy fireplace since the day I set eyes on it over a year ago. My husband, on the other hand, was content with the natural, rustic look. I talked and talked and talked about how much better our house would look if it was painted, but he was NOT budging on this one. I am not against all natural stone fireplaces. Some are absolutely beautiful and I would never dream of painting them. Ours was not one of those. It was ugly.
I researched stone fireplace makeovers and stumbled upon the whitewashing technique, which calls for painting the fireplace but with watered down paint. This way you achieve a more contemporary, clean look while keeping some of the natural characteristics of the stone. The PERFECT compromise for my situation! Once I showed Trent a few before and after photos from Pinterest, he was on board! It didn’t hurt that we had been planning to lower our TV for a while but hadn’t gotten around to it, so we killed two birds with one stone.
Since I’m obsessed with chalk paint, I had originally planned to use it for this project as I do with all my other paint projects. Though I love the stuff, it’s PRICEY. We had tons of house paint left over from the remodel so I decided to use some of our leftover flat ceiling paint instead. We mixed equal parts paint and water and started painting (after an hour or so of prep work). I must say, this was one of the least fun paint project I have completed in a while. The paint is super thin so it drips easily and limestone is such an uneven surface that you can’t use long strokes like you normally would on flat surfaces. Trent HATES paintings so he usually leaves those projects to me, but luckily joined me in this endeavor. We both painted diligently for over 3 hours before this bad boy was complete. Though it was not fun work, we are happy with the result!
I love how this project freshened up our house. I like to think that one day we will have enough free time to whitewash all the stone on the exterior of the house, to give it the same fresh look 😜. I won’t hold my breath on that one…
Project Ugly House 