Semi-gloss paints – enamels – are a good choice for painting your fireplace or mantel, but will need repeated cleaning, like you would with a painted door. You will need to apply multiple coats of paint for a bold finish. Chalk or wood-specific paint will be best.

Although less physically demanding than covering exterior brick, painting an interior brick wall or fireplace is still time consuming. Painted brick is as difficult to clean as regular brick. If you paint brick in a light color, it will require regular cleaning to keep it looking good.

Use the 2″ brush and ProClassic Interior Acrylic Latex Paint to paint the mortar along with any cracks and crevices of the brick. Then use the 6 ½” roller with ½” nap to paint the rest of the fireplace, ensuring that the paint is applied as evenly as possible.

There are a ton of options for things that you can do to change the look of a brick fireplace:

1. Whitewash or paint the brick.
2. Stucco over the brick.
3. Add tile to the surround or whole fireplace.
4. Add a new mantle to the existing fireplace.

“Most brick was never intended to be painted,” says Crocker. Brick that’s chipping, deteriorating, molding or in overall poor condition is always a bad candidate for paint. Paint blocks the natural pores in the brick’s surface, which can cause existing problems to become exaggerated over time.

No matter whether the brick you’re painting is old or new, interior or exterior, you absolutely must use a primer. “You want a primer that will ‘bite’ into the brick; the better it can wrap around those pores and get into all the nooks and crannies, the better the paint will adhere,” says Villar.

Paint rollers make excellent interior and exterior priming and painting tools, especially when working on brick walls or fireplaces, which can be difficult to cover completely. While on smooth walls almost any roller cover will do, a textured surface like brick calls for a roller cover with a nap that’s at least 1”.

You should not use white paint as primer, as primer has a higher concentration of solids plus it contains an adhesive binder and acts as a sealant. A good quality primer is designed to provide the final finish coat with a better bonding surface than the bare surface itself, unlike white paint.

Flat paint is used as a primer for drywall surfaces as well as a finish product. It is used as a primer to textured drywall prior to applying latex paint products. There are many reasons to use latex paint over an oil primer, and the results are a strong, lasting surface.

So now the question is can you use white paint as a primer? No, you cannot use white paint instead of a primer because it will not be durable and effective enough. Whereas, primer ensures that all the paint particles are bound together to ensure a smooth finish.

Because it has a glue-like base, drywall primer helps the paint adhere properly. If you skip priming, you risk peeling paint, especially in humid conditions. Moreover, the lack of adhesion could make cleaning more difficult months after the paint has dried.

A mist coat is made of watered-down emulsion paint and acts as a primer. The extra moisture gives the wall something to absorb so your topcoat should stick. All our primers are water-based and will help you achieve an even and colourful finish. To make a mist coat, mix three parts emulsion with one part water.