Painting our tile fireplace

Painting a tile fire place. 

There I said it. 

I totally did it too!!! Muahaha. But really it wasn't that hard and it has held up pretty well considering, you know, I have 4 kids... One of which is pretty much obsessed with cars and anything vehicle related. Our fireplace ledge is his "parking garage". So here we go. 

Step 1: Hate your fireplace secretly until you're about 8 months pregnant and cant handle life with it anymore. 

Step 2: Paint the brass surround in an attempt to make yourself feel better about it. 

I used barbecue paint that's meant for high heat. 

Step 3: Hate it still and decide to seriously overhaul it. 

For this I used Zinsser primer (water based) and ACE cabinet, door and trim paint in high hiding white. It's expensive but its so so worth it. 

Step 4: Admire your work but wait! The tile looks so much worse now! Eff word. OK what do I do? I have chalkboard paint? We'll try it out. 

I did pretty much the same deal as with the mantel. I scrubbed it decently and primed it heavily with the Zinsser. I think it was 3 coats.... 

 

 I then followed it with the chalkboard paint. So here's the deal with the paint. I have had that can of paint for almost 3 years. True story. 

This. Made. Me. Panic. I'm talking premature labor panic. Then 3 coats later.... 

I could breathe. It was beautiful... Like I wanted to take it to dinner good lookin. I added a piece of contact paper in that weird strip and left it for months! 

We have since ripped off the crown molding and put up this pretty dentil molding and I tiled that awkward rectangle with left over tile from our kitchen! 

So I think it looks pretty awesome! Don't mind all the junk up there. It's a high place to keep stuff away from our kids ;)