Washing implies that the base color will show through. I don't think that's what you're looking for, here. That mantel is so high, and not in an "I feel groovy" way.

Honestly, I'd tile it. Vein cut travertine would be smashing. A gorgeous mosaic. Ooh, ooh, ooh! Some kind of wood grain tile like this link. There are a few that really caught my eye.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tiling fireplace

When I looked at the pic even before reading your post I thought "whitewash". I would whitewash or light-color-wash the brick and paint the shelf and vent white to match your trim! You may have to use high heat paint for the vent.

Great link, alex. yea that mantle is a thorn in my side. way to high. and the hearth? is so high! I love the full wooden mantles, you know with wood all around the sides and everything. How much do you think tiling it would add to the bulk of the fireplace? Would you tile over everything brick or leave some exposed? Maybe paint part of the upper portion the same as the walls to lessen the impact of OMG THERE'S A FIREPLACE!!

Oh, and is there anyway to cut off the brick that pokes out from under the mantle in order to lower it?

Titan, I am leaning mostly to whitewashing. But I am apprehensive due to the reddish tint in the darn brick. I was thinking of white for the mantle also if I went that route.

*I spray painted the insert and vents a couple years ago from the original gold. (yes, gleaming, bright reflective gold) y'all should have seen that!! But I wasn't smart enough to use heat safe paint. No chipping/bubbling yet! *

Forgot to add, the fireplace is directly in line with the front door. So I need some fabulosity going on!

But still, it's an immense improvement over that glaring gold! I haven't even hardly remembered it until now and it still gives me shivers. I swear you could see it from the street and I don't live on the curb lol

You can adjust the opacity of whitewash by diluting more or less. I think you can easily eliminate the overall color of the brick, add a little of your wall color. If it still doesn't look right, go ahead and paint it white.

To remove the brick shelf supports, a chisel will work.

You can buy mantel surrounds preformed, so if you want to go all out you could install one of those and then drywall over the brick outside of the mantel. This will be more expensive than just whitewashing or painting the brick.

Here is a link that might be useful: Examples of Mantels

I'm currently getting bids for wood look tile flooring and its depth is 5/16", so it would not add to the depth all that much.
As tinan suggested, chiseling off the protrusions will take care of the mantel area. I'd tile all of it. The hearth could either be topped with some kind of stone or cut off and that area be the same depth from top to bottom. One is more traditional, the other contemporary. Just depends on your aesthetic.

And here I am wondering what to do with my ugly tile fireplace!

lol tinan!!! Let's trade, perhaps?! I have some spare bricks I may test paint/whitewash. hmm..... I think at least lowering the mantle would help me like it better. ha ha I may wind up with an abominable snowman in my LR!!! Can't you see that white mantle looking like some hooded, hairy eyes lol

Alex, I'd have to leave the hearth alone I'm afraid. It has blowers in it. I will have to see what I can find in the way of tile. I'm kind of getting excited about tile!! So many options!

I am saddled with a not-so-great FP. It is actually OK in certain lighting, and would be better if I had what I wanted to style it properly, but I'm working slowly on it.

Dyeing the brick is on my list of things to try while I save $ for real improvements. (FEMA worthy storm = flood in our basement= a lot on hold!) I want to drywall over part of it eventually, and if you paint over brick, it gets much more complicated. Staining it does not change the brick properties.

I am stuck on what color(s) to get, though, and when I e-mailed Dyebrick awhile ago w/my photo, they never got back to me.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dyebrick

What Anele said about painting. Once you do that, paint is the only option for the future on the lower half. I've thought of doing it on and off for years, mine is wider than yours and a different brick. I just can't pull the trigger on something that would be just OK, when picking a gorgeous tile that I love is an option. Tiling over paint is NOT an option.

Fav.aunt, is that a regular fireplace or an EPA-rated furnace? I ask because your mantle is very high. We have one of the latter and can't mount anything combustible, like a wood mantle within a traditional distance over the unit because of the rising heat, even with the doors closed. In any case, if yours was too, and you wanted to move the mantle down you'd need very flame-resistant materials.

FWIW, I'd left ours in a very modern unit-set-in-plain-wall default look for some time because of that. I had wanted a traditional. rather dainty wood mantle with pilasters down the sides, and heavy carved stone never seemed appropriate to this house.

I'm finally moving on this, though, because I want a mantle at a normal height to decorate. Giving up on traditional, I've decided to set a creamy marble or other stone shelf on heavy decorative cast-iron brackets (wood corbels won't do) that will be painted a similar color. The stack is proud of the wall about 5", so the shelf will wrap very shallowly around the sides, and everything below that will be tiled, ceramic or stone mosaic perhaps. (Our hearth is flush with the floor.) Probably a generally creamy white-on-white look because this is a very light room with windows all over, but the options are wide open. Maybe a bit too much. Some of the custom tiles on Etsy are really threatening to derail my simple plan. Small mosaics look wonderful, but there's a real shortage of Arts and Crafts style squirrels twitching their tails from the fireplace these days. :)

BTW, apparently no one makes residential-type "stock moldings" in a material with high fire ratings. You know, like the various stock wood moldings you can pick up at Home Depot and put together various charming traditional surrounds with. Sigh...

BTW, I love the look of whitewashed brick. You could go white or cream to see how you liked it, rather than going directly to a gray.

We painted our brick wall/fp--the entire wall was red, red brick, with black mortar. When we purchased our house 14 1/2 yrs ago, I figured we'd just ignore the brick and pretend it wasn't even there. When it finally came time to actually address said room, I knew I couldn't just pretend that ugly wall wasn't there. DH resisted sheetrocking over the brick (he was still "recovering" from all the work he'd put in renovating our two main floor bathrooms, and he really, really, really didn't want to deal with installing sheetrock anywhere at that time).

Another option we looked into, one you might consider, involved filling the mortar lines (with something similar to or made from perlite?), and then coating the entire wall with joint compound, which would create a smooth surface for painting. I think the guy quoted us $1500 to do it.

We didn't really want to spend that much money on the wall at the time, so decided to paint the brick instead. We figured, if we hated it, we could always cover it (with sheetrock or joint compound) later on. I decided, if we were going to paint it, it had to look like "something" (and not just another wall in the room that was the same color as the others, but happened to be brick). I "knew" the wall had to be painted black; it was, in my mind, the best way to fully embrace the painted brick "concept" so to speak.

If you decide to paint or stain or whitewash your brick, you can either do so in such a way the brick blends-in with its surroundings, or stands out, as ours does. I think it boils down to personal preference, and what works best for the space and decor.

Before I share our pics, one other thing. I highly recommend Stove Bright's High Temperature paint for your fp insert (I've used the spray paint version). I've used it to t/u our mantel cover and fp surround, as well as using it to re-paint our baseboard heat covers (black, to blend in with the black-painted brick!). Most recently I used it to spray paint a Pier 1 table silver, because I find the paint easy to use, and it seems to be extremely durable in/on non-high heat applications as well.

I can provide the instructions I was given by the Stove Bright people for painting over other paint if you need it.

Here are some pics:

Before

After

Here is a link that might be useful: cat_mom's Family Room

Yes -- a BIG vote to follow cat mom's great dark gray fireplace ... it would hide the insert and vents -- no mantel ...

Then add a fabulous starburst mirror.

P.S. Consider painting out the whole doorway (door and trim) in the wall color -- make it disappear ......

Alex, yes . . .painting is forever, unless you have the energy to get it all off.

If you want to whitewash, you can dilute the lightener from Dyebrick (the stain) and use it that way.

I want to find out if I can keep dyeing the brick, if I want to change the look down the line.

Catmom, thanks for this-- I had no idea! "Another option we looked into, one you might consider, involved filling the mortar lines (with something similar to or made from perlite?), and then coating the entire wall with joint compound, which would create a smooth surface for painting. I think the guy quoted us $1500 to do it. "

You're welcome!

The pics we saw of the project (coated wall) looked terrific. I definitely recommend looking into it.

We knew we were never going to like the look of our particular brick and mortar in their natural state (I do like the look of natural brick, in the right settings, and in nicer shades/colors). Our brick was a real red, red. With the black mortar, it totally overpowered the room, and it also made it look dark, and cramped, too.

If we had had the wall coated, we probably would also have wanted to remove the raised hearth, the brick mantel, and the brick framing the fp opening (so we could end up with an in-wall, flush-mounted contemporary-look gas fp). That would have entailed a big increase in labor and cost.

I got sidetracked before I researched dying or staining the brick, and ended up on the path towards painting it. I probably would have liked black-dyed or stained brick just as much, if not a little more than the painted brick (would have retained more of the natural brick texture), but I am very happy with the way ours turned out. Different, but equally nice! With the Aura paint in the matte finish, the brick looks and feels almost leather-like, which is really cool (almost "Tim Burtonesque" we like to say!).

We figured, at worst (if we'd hated the finished result), we would only be out the cost of the paint and primer, and the weekend it took to prime and paint it. Then we would have reconsidered sheetrocking over it or coating it, to end up with a smooth, painted wall.

I still like the idea of white washing.

Here is a link that might be useful: white washing

My budget makeover might be a little more 'cozy/country' than you'd like, but you might be able to use the ideas. We started with the same brick, and high hearth and mantle. The mantle was an old, weathered, barn beam which I didn't like--it's still under there, just covered with a golden oak box. I know, not everyone's cup of tea. The oak boards on the sides cover the heat vents that are no longer used. That's inexpensive 1x2 tile from Lowes, around the firebox, and clearance 12x12 on the hearth.

I was trying to capture the golden, late afternoon light in this pic, but it's a good shot of the FP:

Rosie, itâÂÂs a regular old wood burning fireplace. But thanks for the question. Will it be ok to lower the mantle since itâÂÂs a regular fireplace? Who would I ask to find out?
I love the ideas you have for your fireplace!!! And you are 100% correct! There is not enough squirrels on fireplaces in this world! And I want pictures when you are done!

O.M.G. catmom. I am completely, absolutely, mouth-gaping-open floored! I love that. ItâÂÂs fabulous, dramatic and absolutely beautiful!! I didnâÂÂt want to look away to type this!! Fabulous job! Kudos to you for biting the bullet and going for it and such a reward!! Do you smile every time you see it? I love this idea, love, love! I am such a sucker for a dramatic piece in a room!

teacats, I never thought to paint the door the wall color. But it makes perfect sense. and would help to balance that wall. oh and I really like mirrors. never had considered it there, but now it's all I can see!

Nosoccermon, that link is what made me fall in love with the whitewashed look! I think if the FP had a brown or grey undertone as opposed to red it would be ok. I just donâÂÂt know how it would work with the rest of the house.

Mama_goose I like your fireplace! It looks perfect in the room. I can see a resemblance between our FPs. Thank you for the visual!

Oh you are all fabulous!! IâÂÂm picturing a deep grey with a silver mirror hanging! So we have a new idea in the lead! I am still throwing around the concept of a smooth surface. I feel it would detract from the fireplace feel tho. Then again it may be the perfect element. Hmm. IâÂÂm gonna have to see a pic or mock up something at the house.

I was thinking that the Before picture of the fireplace on that link looks perhaps seven redder than your fireplace.

I have some spare bricks out back that I intend to test on. Possibly the red will be covered enough to not slap me in the face :) If it was a pink fireplace, I'd be all about it! I had a pink living room once, loved it!

What a terrific range of ideas, from Cat Mom's sophisticated drama to Mama Goose's wonderful coziness. If I do do squirrels, I'll definitely have to throw them in the mix too.

Thanks for that site, Nosoccermom. I installed some brick flooring that I'm just no longer that happy with and now have an idea for "something-washing" that. I'd want to wipe very assiduously so we didn't end up wearing paths in it. I have extra to practice on, though, so--thanks again.

Fav.aunt, since it is a regular fireplace, I'm guessing the standard height range would be perfectly fine. But you could contact the manufacturer. The gray and silver sound wonderful for the room. For a modern look, I could also really see doing a simple textured coating over it eventually. Under the paint on our stack is cement board. I loved the slightly rough, raw look--and its concrete gray, which was really distinctive against the rest of the drywall. I hated to cover it, but the seams were definitely less than artistic and it had to be done. I seriously drew patterns we could cut new cement board into and cover the seam pattern with metal stripping or some such thing, but DH was less than enthusiastic, so I dropped it.

Fav.auntx2, thank you so much for your kind words! I do smile whenever I walk downstairs. Not only do I love how the wall, and FR in general turned out, but I am overjoyed at having finished rooms finally! LOL. Up until we renovated the room, we had used the FR for storage, and as a staging area during other house projects.

I have mentioned in other threads that I am often (usually) quite indecisive, but, occasionally, an idea will come to me that I know to be the right one, and I embrace it without hesitation. A gut-feel sort of thing. This was one of those times--there really was no question in my mind that the wall had to be black. DH fully embraced this, too, from the moment I suggested it. There were plenty of naysayers and doubters when they were told of our plan, but they all liked it when they saw the finished room.

Oh, FWIW, the wall is black, not dark grey (BM "Black"). :).

Whatever color you choose, whether you leave the brick, or cover it first, I am sure it will look fabulous! Can't wait to find out what you decide, and see how it looks! I love seeing all the transformations around here!

Yes, cat_mom, your room is wonderful. The way you pulled everything together. Bold yet smooooooth.

It's like Barry White and Frank Sinatra collaborated!