Fireplace Facelift

I love an old house, but one of my first mental notes when walking in to this old house was “The brass must GO!” Light fixtures, door hardware, and the giant fireplace doors. It’s just not my thing. The light fixtures and door knobs/hinges have all been updated with fresh new, oil rubbed bronze, but the Paint-the-Fireplace-Doors project lingered on…

I’d honestly kind of gotten used to them. This is an old house, they are old doors, and that’s that… Only they were in awful shape. You can’t tell in pictures but they were rusted through in so many places.

It was this picture I posted Thursday night that gave me the push I needed to Conquer the Brass.

I started prepping, taping, and draping Friday morning and I promise this was the most tedious part of the entire project.

I sanded down some of the rough, rusted areas with steel wool, just enough to smooth them out. Then I used rolls of paper and plastic drop clothes to protect the surrounding surfaces, and to make sort of a tent over the area we were spray painting so that the mist and fumes would be somewhat confined…

James did the actual painting. He wore a mask because the fumes were a bit much inside his little plastic bubble. We also turned off our heating/air conditioning system, closed the vents in this room, ran a fan, and opened lots of doors and windows.

We used this paint in the Oil Rubbed Bronze finish (Home Depot). I’m so happy with the color and the nice matte finish. It literally looks like we have a brand new set of doors.

Before and After.

Such a cheap and relatively easy update, but it has made all the difference. Why did it take us this long?!?