Do you have a decorative suggestion for me?

Question

I have an old fireplace in my apartment. It looks as if it is cast-iron, but someone has painted it white (which I hope to return to it's original state eventually-next project-any ideas on how to do that are welcomed!!!!) and it is bricked in with red brick. The opening is small 14"X20"???? and rounded, like an upside down "U". I just want to do something different than just have red brick to look at.....I have a ton of acrylic paint and thought I could mess around with those..... any ideas?

Answer 1

You could try to do a mosaic and cover up the brick. All you have to do is go to second hand stores like Goodwill or something similar and buy ceramic plates in the color scheme you would like. Use closely matching colors, but not exact to give it some dimension. Put the plates in a plastic bag and use a hammer to break them into smal pieces. Then you can use the same materials used to tile a floor (I forget what the glue is called) and glue the pieces in place how you like. Once that is all dry, you can grout them to give it a finished look.
For the cast iron, depending on you color choice for the mosaic, maybe you can leave it white or perhaps a paint thinner will work to restore it to black again. Or maybe you can just use a matte black finish to paint over it again.
Then buy some tall white candles and set them in front of the fireplace, pehaps with an ivy arrangement to go around them. I think that would look awesome.

Answer 2

If you stencil, ivy, floral designs will be pretty. For instance, in the corners, have the ivy stencilled at each corner and a flower basket, or several roses, or other special flowers you like, stencilled in center of fireplace above the opening. This will take the eye to the stencilling, thus, giving a decorative look at same time.

Or, get a decorative screen to use at the opening, and not stencil, let the screen grab the eye and enhance the fireplace.
Add candles, matching flower arrangement to the screen design on the mantle, giving additional accents in the room and around the white fireplace.

There are so many ideas I could give you.
Check out www.eycfloralsandgifts.com and see if they have anything you might can use.

Answer 3

Acrylics wouldn't work unless you watered them down and "tinted" the bricks-lock up DIY's network site and also HGTV- they have a backlog of project ideas for you to view-nice sites.

Answer 4

If the brick gets hot at all, whatever you use will have to be heat resistent. Sorry without a picture, I have no good ideas.