Back in June, I wrote this post about the fireplace in our “den”. I was really nervous about potentially painting the brick surround because, once you do it, you can’t take it back!
However, I just felt this nagging pull to do it. I’m such a rebel…
I did it!
Here is the before shot:

And here is the after!

I went ahead and primed & sealed the brick with some Behr. But after I had a good coat of primer on it, I felt like,”hey, it looks exactly like I painted it. It’s sealed…it’s fine”! So I left it without paint. I can always run a little white paint over it if I decide not to leave it this way.
Now, my best friend already confessed she doesn’t like it. And, that’s ok. I like it. I think it makes the room pop and it does what I wanted it to do for this whole room; moves it one step away from traditional.
This project was NOT as easy as the couple over at YHL said it would be….but it wasn’t hard either. It was time consuming.
Also for the den, that cute chair I found on Craigslist was just too ecrue for me…I wanted a softer cream color. So I bought a slipcover at Target on a whim and tossed it on there.

I can’t find a before picture of this chair! I think I only took them on my phone. BOOO! (I know I can get pics off my phone…somehow.) So just believe me…’cause I don’t want to take the slip cover off to show you…maybe I’ll just lift up a corner or something or go to Facebook and you can see the difference. But you get the idea.
The next project? Finding some fun wallpaper to put in the back of the built-ins! (I won’t actually stick it on…I’ll just tack it up there so I can take it down if I don’t like it later…or right away!) That’ll be a more drawn out project I imagine. There’s lots of measuring involved and random browsing/shopping…things I can’t do with kids around. Hurray for house projects!
I like it! It’s definately better than the original brick. Good job!!!! 🙂