Updating A Brick Fireplace

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Okay, I know you are probably thinking that you are tired of seeing and hearing about my fireplace and mantel obsession... but I promise this is good. When I bought my little house, I knew I wanted to update the brick fireplace. The fireplace itself has great a shape and a great brick pattern. But, the overall darkness of the brick made my oh so small living room seem even smaller. Soooo... I decided to go for it! 

Brick Fireplace DIY

I want to start this DIY Blog by saying this... I am not an expert. In fact, most of everything I have learned comes from YouTube, Pinterest, and a lot of trial and error. After much research, I decided to use brick mortar instead of paint. Both ways are great, but before you decide I would research both options.

Materials I used: 

• 1 Bag of White Mortar (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Custom-Building-Products-VersaBond-White-50-lb-Fortified-Thinset-Mortar-MTSW50/100091767) 
• Solo Cup or a Large Bucket
• Sponge (https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-Multi-Purpose-Sponge-2-Pack-32242/300170304) 
• A couple of old rags
• Paint Mixer (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Warner-1-3-4-in-Spiral-Mixer-for-1-5-gal-Epoxy-205322/205053024) or honestly you could use anything for this. 
• Drop cloth or old sheet

Okay so this is how it went down....

1. Clean your bricks well. I used a vacuum.
2. Mix your mortar. Do not mix the entire bag, because it will harded before you finish unless you work fast (I learned this the hard way). After I ruined an entire bag on mortar, I decided to mixed it up as I went. Just mix by adding the dry mortar and water into a bucket or a Solo cup. Stir well. 
3. With an old rag I wiped mortar onto a couple of bricks, and then took my damp sponge and patted the excess off. This is a wax on and wax off kinda deal.
4. You want to continue this all over your bricked area.

The rest is really up to you! You can adjust how it looks with your sponge. If you want to remove some mortar... add some water to your sponge and it will rub right off. Play around with it until you get it how you like it! Depending on how large your space is, you could do this DIY in one day. 

                            Before                                                      During 

  After

There is no wrong way to do this! Just make sure YOU love it!  

Comment below with questions! 

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