Once upon a time some people bought a house in Seattle. And it was mostly a very nice house, if you ignored the fact that it had been painted by colour-blind people.
The living room, for example, was painted bright egg-yolk yellow accented with a pillarbox red fireplace.
The woman who bought the house really wanted to do something about the fireplace as soon as they moved in, so she set up a poll on her blog asking whether she should just paint it white or strip back the paint.
Despite 49% of her readers telling her to paint it white, she decided to strip back the bricks to see what was underneath using a fabulous paint stripper made from soybeans.
First of all the fireplace looked like this
and then this
and it stayed that way for a very long time because removing the paint was really quite time consuming and tedious.
And then a friend announced that she would be coming for a visit and the owners of the fireplace decided that it really should be finished before she came.
So they set to work with a vengeance and got it looking like this with just one week to go before adding the final touches.
And finally the fireplace was finished.
Yes, after all the anguish and elbow grease we decided to paint it white after all, and are delighted with the result. I’m wishing we hadn’t spent quite so much time and effort coming to this conclusion though, and I promise I will never, ever ignore you guys ever again.
There’s still much to be done, but finally I’m really starting to like this room. We’ll be talking paint colours next week.
It’s beautiful. The room is full of interesting pieces that I notice more and more the longer I look at the photos.
So funny. I really meant to buy that paint but my utter laziness paid off for once.
In the end, your room looks fantastic.
And I see the coffee table made it onto the rug. 🙂 The fireplace looks great, I can’t wait to see what wall color you choose.
Lovely.
And I think that is the new coffee table, not the old all glass one….
xx
Ah, yes, the colourblind people who insist on painting… Our living room was ORANGE.
You’ve done a great job on the fireplace and the paint job will probably last WAY longer because of all the prep work you did!
Looks great!
It looks wonderful – much improved over the former owner’s red fireplace.
WOW..fantastic job! I like the white much better, brightens up the space….!
Jen Ramos
‘100% Recycled DESIGNER Cards’
http://www.madebygirl.com
Thanks all! Though I’m still kicking myself that we didn’t just paint a couple of coats of white over the red on the first weekend we moved into the house…
Oh my word. Can I come live here? IT’s gorgeous! I haven’t succumbed to painting my fireplace yet…
I adore this!!! It looks beautiful! 🙂
Okay, Paola — Mary T here again. Go see the debate on painting my fireplace on Flickr. (Mainly a debate with ONE friend of ours.) I am so leaning ever closer to painting by seeing this post. We had arrived at tiling it, but now I’m thinking paint will be an awfully affordable quick fix…
http://flickr.com/photos/halfmad/2319300387/in/set-72157603368597840/
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