Since our homeowning journey began just over a month ago, Brent and I have been working our tails off to make it our own. Together we dreamed of the day we would have a place where we could really let our personalities shine, especially after living for a year with the limitations of renting in our apartment. We loved the time we spent in our apartment and will always cherish it as our first home, but the day we got the keys to our house, we really celebrated and felt so thankful.
Right off the bat, painting was something we were really looking forward to! As you might know, a lot of apartments come with creamy yellow walls, and ours was no exception. They drove me crazy! Luckily, the entire downstairs of our new house was painted a beautiful cool white, so we didn’t have to worry about spending hundreds on new walls, but one thing that struck us was how the fireplace blended right into the wall.
It’s hard to see in photos, but this room is quite big, and the fireplace just wasn’t getting the attention it deserved against a blank white wall. We had been dreaming of having a fireplace, so together we decided it needed a pop to make it stand out! In the end, though, it was actually Brent’s idea to paint it blue! I had shown him a photo on Pinterest of a living room with sconces that I liked, and he ended up liking the blue fireplace in the photo most of all, and we decided to go for it!
Brent and I each have our own skills; his mostly being handiwork and installation and mine being design. However, Brent really surprised me with his hand in this fireplace! He went to Home Depot and picked out three colors for me to choose from, and I actually liked them all! I think we would have been happy with any of them.
When choosing your color, I definitely recommend trying out large swatches in the space where you’ll be painting, and let them dry for a day while you mull it over. Colors can change from wet to dry but also they can look different depending on the light you get in the room at different times of the day. You might love a color at night but think it’s way too bright during the day. After a day of contemplation, we went with the Behr Marquee One-Coat paint in Skinny Jeans! We ended up only needing one sample can, so this job was extremely budget-friendly.
Once it was ready to paint, I made sure to use nice painters tape for all the edges. Against the white walls, any mess-ups were going to really show up, so I was really careful. Tearing up tiny pieces of tape to fit the molding of the mantel design was tedious but so worth it!
Pro Tip: Be sure to do a really thorough job for your first coat when you’re covering up a color vastly different than the one you’re painting it. I didn’t want any little white specs peeking through, so the first coat took me about 2 hours (definitely with a break in between!). I used a medium-sized flat brush for most areas since there was a lot of intricate molding, and a small roller (and handle) for the larger areas on top.
Also, you want to be sure that the first coat dries completely before starting a second coat or you’ll end up with little gunky clumps. This paint is technically a one-coat paint, and I think it would have been fine with one coat, but I didn’t want to cut any corners for a project like this that I’d be looking at every day!
Once I was done with the bottom half, Brent took down the TV and we worked together on the top. The roller really came in handy here not only to save time but the lines also looked a lot smoother than it would have if we had used a brush.
After we re-installed the TV, it was ready to go! It took me a few weeks to find the right decor for the mantel since it’s so narrow (see my video about that here), but I’m loving how it looks now! PS we have the Samsung Frame TV and I personally believe it was 100% worth the cost. Instead of being a blank black box when it’s off, it’s a beautiful piece of art that I get to choose and can change any time (I have the $5/month membership that lets you change it any time you want, otherwise it’s $20 per picture.) And this is definitely not sponsored – I WISH I was working with them on this but we paid the full price for it.
I definitely encourage anyone who’s thinking about taking on a DIY like this to go for it! We knew nothing about painting something like this and it was so easy and turned out great. Now it’s the perfect statement fireplace!
