chalk painted 1970's stone fireplace

hi there!

 my lil ol seventies fireplace sure gets a lot of attention,

 thanks to Pinterest!!

i wrote a post about this makeover here. 

if you click on the link you will find photos of the painting process. at the end of this post i will go into more detail and answer some questions….rest assured this is super easy to do.

i painted the old brown stone of my fireplace with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.

before i go into detail about how i painted it,

here are some more images of the 

before 

and 

after

…...

before

 after

 before

 after

 before

 after

before

 after

 before

 after

 and…

wayyyyy before…i mean like seven years ago…before I even painted the brown mantel.

man oh man, the seventies were dark.

and after….

ahhhhhhh.

can you hear the choir of angels singing?

here it is today.

fresh and gray and subtle and oh so neutral.

so, i want to answer some questions that i am often asked about  how to get this effect….

the original 1970's stone and mortar was simply dusted off before i painted.

i did NOT prime.

i did NOT sand.

or even clean the stone.

i just dusted.

i applied a 

wash

of Annie Sloan Paris Gray Chalk Paint

a "wash"

is simply a paint that has been diluted with water.

i used very little, i mean very little paint.

i did not measure but i am guessing it was about

1/4 cup of paint to 3/4 cup of water.

i used an old paint brush to wash this over the stone and the mortar….letting it soak into the stone.

i let this first layer dry…but believe me it did not take long…perhaps 15 minutes…

and then i applied another wash to get rid of more brown tones that were peaking through.

next, I added more dimension and depth to the stones by

using a 

dry brush technique.

i used the same Paris Gray paint mixed with some ordinary white house paint that i had on hand…any latex house paint will work.

"dry brush"

means to work your paint down into the brush

and then wipe off most of the paint onto a newspaper or rag…

so that there is very little paint on the ends of the brush. 

your brush will be rather well, dry.

use the side of this "dry brush" to lightly hit the raised parts of the stone…so as to highlight parts of the stone….i used a rag to wipe and dab off any visible brush strokes as i went.

that's it.

i painted my fireplace over two years ago and it has held up fine even with occasional use of the fireplace. the heat from the fire has not affected the paint at all.

i have no regrets.

regrets are a waste of time.

i sure hope this helps.

be brave.

paint your fireplace !

p.s. i am so much more than just my fireplace make over.  while you are here, won't you please take a gander at my other pages? i have lots of goodies and eye candy to share with you.

thank you,

erin