Here's the finished product from the front room.

Chimney project

For a long time, I've wanted to change the way our chimney looked. I considered a few options: stucco over all the brick (messy, and not quit the look I wanted); or stripping the paint off the brick (very difficult, plus not knowing if the bricks even look good. In the end, we decided to make it look like we uncovered the brick by painting them on.

We were going to try to tape off all the mortar lines, and sponge paint in between, but we couldn't find the right size tape, and/or it wouldn't stick. So Dave cut me some stencils out of a handy pizza box, and we were in business.We began by stenciling on some base colors, grey, black, brown and tan. Then, we used a brick red and sponged over the base colors, some heavy, some light, making it as random as possible.

We left the middle section unfinished because we are covering it with a mirror, anyway. Here's the kitchen side.

I was really pleased when my mom asked how we knew the brick beneath the paint would look so good. (Yeah, I fooled her)

Now, I just have to find something really cool to hang on it.