If you find the brick to be pleasing it may take sandblasting to expose it. Meanwhile, you can update by painting the brass surround with a black heat proof paint.

Generally, people paint the brick on a fireplace because it is ugly. Many a design dilemma here on Houzz is Paint or not to Paint their brick. I'd say repainting the brick the white (or even a light gray) and updating the FP screen and it will look great. Search Houzz photos "gray painted brick fireplace" and "white painted brick fireplace" and you'll see how great they look.

Some brick is meant to be painted....it's not glazed. There is a church around the corner that sand blasted the paint off and found that the bricks deteriorated and didn't match.

Removing paint from brick is a tremendous amount of work and not always successful. On our local historic homes tour, one of this year's houses had a similar situation and they ended up removing all the original brick and redoing the fireplace as they couldn't get the brick clean

lots of options , stucco or thin veneer stone come to my mind. Last options to me would be trying to clean the old brick

You could also tile right over the brick, but definitely paint over the brass on the door.

If you are looking for a more custom or modern look, I have a tuscan stoneworx product that i can overlay right over the brick. We finish with a color wash and polish. Its amazing!

I found this a while back and thought the process was really neat.

Live with the white for awhile. You may grow to love it. I think it is quite nice. As an aside, you sconces seem low. Would it be possible to turn them so they shine upward?

This may not be an example of actual faux painted brick. It's a color that may appeal to you.

Emily's video makes it look great and fast :)

I can see reasons for restoring the fireplace to it's original color since your home is somewhat historic, and Emily's video may be the answer. We are contemplating painting a 1960 brick fireplace...not historical in any sense.

Hi Omahafoursquare!

Love your home!

I love learning all the architectural terms I've seen on Houzz! Did you see the piece they did on the 1930's Florida beach bungalows called "cracker"? I would kill for one of those homes!

I clicked on "Browse Rooms" and then typed in "arts and crafts (also try craftsman) fireplace", and it brought up several examples that look very similar to yours.

I have my rudimentary little drawing, but you'll see all kinds of beautiful tile designs.

That might be a good solution for you if you like that look. Tile is very inexpensive, not too hard for DIY'ers, with predictible results.

This period of design is very simple and pretty, and if you can do restoration that is fairly easy to maintain the integrity, it usually has a positive impact on resale etc.

I used blue green, but true green was used a lot, which I personally love, because it goes with everything, but there are infinite choices.

You wouldn't even have to change your surround or hearth. It would probably cost under $100.

Very pretty fireplace, and home. It looks like it is in beautiful shape for its age!

Shabby chic it? Kinda like above. The sconces are throwing me off a bit...upside down? And the brass screen door should be painted black or replaced with something with a little more character. Just my 2 cents worth. :)

I agree with smdrovetto. There are thousands of pictures online of craftsman fireplaces, and a majority of them have tile incorporated. Good luck with your project!

Seven years late.

But the walnut blasting video is a horrific example of endangering worker's health while removing almost certainly leaded paint. Doing the same thing in a home without adequate containment measurements is equally dangerous. I once removed the plaster over a disused interior chimney. The exposed brick looked hideous and I ended up just painting it white.

Yeah. I noticed my comment was a little late, after I had posted it. Oops!

You may be able to see the unfinished brick inside the fireplace unless the fireplace was used and has accumulated a lot of soot. We bought a California ranch-style house (built in the early 70’s) with a huge two-sided fireplace which had been painted (like everything else) off-white. I had it very lightly sandblasted to remove the paint. Removing it by any other method (heat gun or stripper) would have taken a long long time and cost a lot in labor. The sand was vacuumed up three times with a commercial vacuum before hardwood floors were laid. The underlying brick now has a lightly roughened texture and is a regular red brick color. The trick is a light touch with the sandblasting.... more like sand-washing, without water, than blasting. We have had the house 36 years and have never regretted doing it.