*GASP* We painted the brick!

When you’re trapped inside all winter with an infant, you start to feel a little oppressed. Like the walls are closing in. Something heavy, orange, and brown looming over you, weighing you down.

Orange and brown?

Yes. For me, this color pairing will forever be associated with the feeling of entrapment. Sorry, Cleveland Browns. Your jerseys just happen to be the same oppressive color of our fireplace:

Living room two Christmases ago. Before it was overrun by the tiniest tyrant.

We’ve been stuck in a decor rut with our most-used room in the house. And it’s because an entire wall is nothing but 80s-spectacular orange and brown brick. For the past two years, we’ve kicked around the idea of white-washing or painting it, but just couldn’t pull the trigger. Other things to do, plus OMG! You can’t paint brick!

But you can only spend so many hours facing that wall, trapped under a nursing baby, before you kind of just snap.

So, a couple weekends ago, Mike’s dad came over for baby snuggles while we began what we naively thought would be a one-weekend project. Pinterest had oodles of examples of whitewashed fireplaces, and the process is simple and easy … just very, very tedious. And we have a lot of brick. We decided to whitewash rather than paint, because we still wanted some brick variation to show through (and you can always add paint later).

All we had to do was use our leftover trim paint. This was perfect, because the white base had some rust flecks in it from the bucket lid. To use it on the trim, we’d need to strain it. Since we’re dealing with a rough, porous surface and want some brick to come through, rust flecks are almost an asset!

So, here’s what we did:

• Taped off and put down drop cloths - Very messy project!
• Mix 50/50 paint and water (1 cup each)
• Dip brush, scrape off excess (very runny), and brush into the mortar, then brush across the brick. Do a few at a time.
• Take a rag or paper towel and dab the wet brick.
• Repeat, repeat, repeat …

As the mix first goes on, it’ll look very opaque, but as it dries, you’ll see more brick come through. Do a few bricks at a time, then go back and dab. The longer the paint sits before dabbing, the more opaque it’ll become. If you want a more opaque look, you can certainly adjust the paint-water ratio or skip dabbing. But dabbing does allow more of the brick texture to come through.

Mike and I worked on different sections and discovered that even though we were verbally doing the same thing, our dab and brush techniques were different. We decided on the second coat that only one person would do it, and the other was on baby duty.

We did not finish the first coat on Saturday afternoon. Even with Grandpa watching Anna and two parents working on painting, it was slow going. I had to stop to pump, which really kills my momentum.

We made some more progress on Sunday, but it wasn’t until the next weekend that we could do the second coat. So we spent a week, looking at it like this.

The second coat allowed me to even out some of the variation. You can tell where we started by the darker/less washed areas. The mix was more watery before evaporation and we were dabbing either too soon or too aggressively.

For the second coat, we kept the mix the same, but I allowed more time for drying, especially on the less-covered bricks.

By the second Sunday, our fireplace was more or less finished. It just needed some mortar evening here and there, project cleanup, and redecorating. But we’d already been reveling in how much brighter the room had become. So, here it is:

Feels a little bit different in here now! Brighter, for one, and now we feel like we can bring some color into the room. We'll probably paint the walls something besides cream, add some artwork, and put some color on the mantle. The decoration there was mostly white from trying to brighten up the previously dark wall. Right now our style is pretty much "baby in the house." We removed the heavy coffee table, now that Punkster is scooting all over the place, and we'll eventually replace it with an ottoman that's less skull-cracking.

The fireplace will also get bumpers and we're going to attempt cleaning and sprucing the grate. We also need to special order some new blinds for the windows, because the box stores only carry up to 72-inches, and we need 84. We're also on the hunt for a TV stand that's not black and has cabinets, so we can lock stuff away from curious little fingers.

In case you're feeling nostalgic:

We're not.