One thing I knew immediately upon walking into our new house for the first time, was that the fireplace absolutely needed to be updated. We love older homes, no question...but gold fixtures are just not my style. Thanks to google, I learned quickly how to remove the old fireplace cover so we could paint it!
Here is the before/after!
First, let me say if you can't tell we are literally in the middle of having our floors refinished so there is dust and fixtures/supplies everywhere. When we came to the house yesterday to finish up the fireplace, our floor guy was still here sanding, so we worked around him for a couple minutes putting the finishing touches (handles) on the fireplace. Excuse the mess....there is a lot going on at the house right now!
Okay here is how easy this project is...and all for about $8.
Supplies:
Screwdriver
New handles (if you want them. One of ours was broken clean off, so we wanted new ones)-$2 per
Painters tape and paper bags
Something to clean the metal with first-any cleaning product you have around is fine
First, let me tell you how much easier it was to remove this fireplace than I thought...I watched a few videos on google, and was shocked that it really was as easy as they said. Kevin was even skeptical when I explained to him how to take it off. There were 4 brackets on the inside of the fireplace, 2 on top, 2 on bottom, that simply required us to unscrew the fixture. If it is an old fireplace, you may need to use an electric screwdriver like we did, because we just couldn't get it off without one. No pictures of this, but just stick your head inside and you'll see the brackets.
Note: I saw some videos where they left the fireplace cover on, and taped up the brick surrounding it. That sounded like a big accident waiting to happen for me....It took 5 minutes to take it off, and 5 minutes to put it back on...I'd really suggest moving it.
(you may freak out the minute you remove it too...when you realize you better be able to get this back on because it looks really rough without it! This is also a great time to clean the fireplace if it is wood burning and you're pretty sure the last owners never cleaned it...ever)
Take the cover outside and clean it. You don't want any sticky spots on here or rough spots. If you need to use sandpaper, do it. It should be smooth and well prepped.
Now tape off the glass part and use the paper bags to help cover the glass. Tape it off well.
Remove the handles (we forgot to do this part...and had to go back and remove and repaint the gold spots that were left).
Read the instructions on the high heat spray paint, and go to town! (or if you're pregnant watch from inside the house as your husband spray paints the cover). I would say put down a cover or prop the fireplace up and do it in pieces if you don't want to get spray paint on the ground. We have this litlte patch of dirt in our back where the prior owners had a trampoline (and killed all the grass) so we took advantage of the ugly part of the yard and just sprayed it on the dirt). We let it dry a day outside before moving it back in, just in case.
Then reinstall the fireplace cover, add your handles back on, and you're done!
Honestly, we love it and could not be happier with the outcome. We originally planned to spray the handles as well to match, but I ended up loving them silver. Looking forward to start putting the house together in a couple weeks where we can see how big of a change this has made to our living room!
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