Painted Fireplace

I (finally) returned to DIY projects this past week. If you thought my DIY days were behind me now that we're in our new house, you're mistaken. I have a (long) list of projects to make our new house a little more home for us.

George and I decided to focus on our family room and kitchen areas first because we spend so much time in the space, and I'm going to share the projects as we tick through them. I don't know when it hit me, but at some point in the last few months, I realized that the original red brick in the family room had to go. We first imagined resurfacing the fireplace with a more modern stone, similar to what we have in the living room. Given the expense and inconvenience of such a project, I convinced George to let me paint the brick as a first step to improving the fireplace. If we hated the paint, I argued, then we could consider a more involved fireplace facelift.

A little guidance from these (1, 2) tutorials and three and half coats of Natura berkshire beige later, we are both really happy with the state of our brick. So happy, in fact, that we've forgotten about tile. 

BEFORE

AFTER

Don't worry: changing the wall paint color is on the list.

So, what do you think? I know that painting brick is controversial. Which team do you support?