DIY Fireplace Makeover Ideas on a Budget That Anyone Can Do!

Learn how to paint a mantel and update an old brick fireplace

Are you looking for an easy and inexpensive way to makeover your living room? Here I will share our DIY fireplace update that stayed on budget. I LOVE when DIY projects are budget-friendly!!!!

We had a REALLY big problem or at least a first world problem. In the scheme of things, it wasn’t the worst problem to have. However, my dated fireplace just drove me crazy. But I knew I had to figure out a way to create a DIY fireplace update that would be very inexpensive. Our family room is one of those spaces we spend a ton of time and I am shocked we hadn’t figured out a way to update the fireplace sooner.

We recently added a wonderful new screened-in porch to our house off of our family room. While I would love to say this was a DIY project, it was anything but. Because we hired people to do construction, it was not cheap.

So any other extra projects truly needed to be DIY and for as little money as possible. In addition to updating the fireplace, we also mounted our TV and created our own DIY corner shelf.

It is crazy how a simple TV mount and doing some quick and easy painting can really makeover a living room.

For the first time in a long time, we left the construction to actual professionals for our outdoor space addition. I will let you know the products we used in the near future in case you are looking to add a new deck or screened-in porch on yourself. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE how our new porch and deck came out!

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Read full privacy policy here. 

What is the easiest way to makeover a fireplace or space?

You may be shocked on this one, but I am going to say that paint is the easiest way to makeover your brick fireplace or mantel.

(Yea, I know you aren’t shocked, we use paint around here ALL the time).

I do love DIY painting projects. If you are pressed for time or just looking for a quick way to update your living room the paint is the way to go. We simply painted our oak mantel white and used some spray paint to update the fireplace cover.

And at the end of this, you will see a little bit more labor-intensive red brick fireplace makeover than my sister-in-law did. This is still a DIY painting project which makes it is a home DIY project that keeps you on a budget!

Updating our fireplace mantel with paint

Now was my time to figure out some good DIY projects to help update our space so that the outdoor and indoor spaces worked together! One of the first projects we knew we HAD TO DO was to do a small DIY fireplace makeover.

When we moved into this house, everything was OAK! I know…no one wants that oak in their house. We have painted molding, doors, gel stained and painted cabinets and pillars to update our home. Once our screened-in porch was complete, our fireplace mantle that was OAK stood out like a sore thumb. I held off painting if for so long because it truly was a nice piece of wood… 

BUT…now we finally did this easy fireplace makeover within a few hours of work.

DIY Mantel Makeover

How to paint oak fireplace mantel white

1. Lightly sand with the grain of the wood. This is to clean up any debris and will help the primer stick. When I say this is an easy DIY fireplace makeover, I can say this because you need to just lightly sand. If you had to sand this whole mantel, it would almost be impossible because of all the grooves and small spaces.

2. Using a soft cloth or paper towel, pour some of the deglosser on and rub it all over the oak wood. I ABSOLUTELY use this product all the time to prep surfaces. You can see how I used this deglosser to prep a midcentury modern dresser or chalk-painted furniture before their DIY furniture makeovers!

3. Carefully apply the bonding primer to clean wood. The most important part of this part of the project is that you make sure to cover everything while not allowing it to drip. It will not be super pretty, yet, but it will be covered with the primer.

4. I ended up painting this mantel during my kids’ naps for three different days. You could do this DIY fireplace makeover in one day, you just have to make sure each layer of primer or paint has dried before going to the next layer.

Therefore, because I waited a day in between each step, I knew my primer was dry. I painted two coats of latex white enamel paint to create a finished DIY mantel makeover.

What paint should you use to paint a fireplace mantel?

In the past, we have used Sherwin Williams Proclassic white enamel paint in semi-gloss and Behr white enamel. However, after repainting our kitchen cabinets, I would recommend Sherwin Williams Urethane Trim Enamel to paint your oak mantel. The Proclassic line worked really well, but this newer Emerald paint has such an amazing finish.

Read more>>>Pick the Right White Paint For Oak

An EASY fireplace cover makeover

Next on the list for our DIY fireplace makeover was the fireplace cover. New ones can be very expensive and they aren’t always the easiest to remove. We know because we removed the one at our last house.

My husband also hated the brass or gold accents on the ’90’s fireplace cover. I told him gold is coming back…

But we have brushed nickel everywhere else so it made sense to use one of our favorite DIY supplies to change that up. Here you can see my husband took the cover off and taped the metal accents.

He used this spray paint to carefully add two smooth coats of paint. This was such a simple and easy DIY fireplace cover makeover that I can’t believe we didn’t do it sooner.  Just peel the tape off carefully and you have a new fireplace cover for almost nothing!

However, some of you were probably wondering how our glass stayed clean when we only had paper towels to cover…

It did not stay clean, we needed to learn how to quickly clean the spray paint off the glass. Luckily we were able to come up with a simple solution to our problem. Be sure to check out how we removed the spray paint here!

And here is our easy fireplace makeover!

Future Ideas for our DIY Fireplace Makeover

I love how our finished mantel and updated fireplace cover look. This was just enough to help refresh our living room cheaply. However, I am still not sold on the brown-colored stone that makes up our fireplace.

I watched several other DIY videos and read several other DIY blogs about how to gray or whitewash our fireplace stone. Most of the information I have found showed successful red brick getting painted, or whitewashed.

I am not 100% sure if these DIY paint techniques will work on the rough fireplace stone I have. I also believe it will be pretty messy and a much bigger undertaking than just the easy DIY fireplace update I did to help makeover my family room.

Fireplace makeover #2: How to paint red brick

So our simple fireplace update of painting the mantel and updating the cover is a great and easy weekend DIY project. But as promised earlier, now I can show you this amazing before and after pictures of red brick getting painting white.

Another AMAZING DIY fireplace makeover

My sister-in-law really worked wonders on her red brick fireplace makeover. In the picture below, you can see how the brick has similar colors to my brown-colored stone.

Farmhouse house inspired fireplace makeover

She did an AMAZING job painting her fireplace to give her whole living room a brand new feel. She used ArborCoat White Solid Stain and highly recommends it to anyone who is debating about giving their fireplace a DIY makeover.

I also have read great reviews on this product to use to help update your fireplace.

Tips to Painting Red Brick Fireplace (and maybe one day my stone fireplace)

The biggest factor that my sister-in-law said to consider was that you must apply this paint in layers and be patient. She was nervous to paint at first but just went with it. For her finished whitewashed fireplace, she said it took around 3 layers of paint. Didn’t she do a FABULOUS JOB?!

Now if only I can figure out how to do this to our stone, I will really have created an awesome living room update with a fireplace makeover.

If you are interested in other ways to have a fireplace updated by fireplace brick makeover, make sure to check out a few of these resources above or check out my DIY Painting Techniques Pinterest board. Here I am saving information on other possible ways to transform a fireplace.

We hope these DIY fireplace makeover ideas inspire you to update your living room cheaply!

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