how to resurface brick fireplace

I have a brick fireplace that had seven layers of paint on it. took almost all of the paint off but brick is so pourous that it will not let me get all the paint off. would like to resurface with stone but don't know what type or how. please help.

 

It seems unlikely that all the paint could be removed from brick.

See if this addresses your question.

http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=179379

 

This thread has been moved to Bricks, Masonry, & Concrete Forum for discussion.

 

i have just registered with this site. i too have the same problem. i tried to find an answer to your question. did anyone have any advice? i am ready to tear hair out. can fireplace be tiled over? help.

 

My wife and I bought a house this summer with a similar fireplace (reclaimed brick w/some painted over.... very ugly). The insert was in very good condition, a quality installation. We had a mason look at the job and he suggested a cultured stone overlay. We didn't tackle the work ourselves due to time constraints, what took him 2 days would have likely taken us 4. He only had to remove the hearth bricks and the vertical brick columns beside the insert before laying the cultured stone over the existing brick.
The resulting fireplace looks amazing, a veritable silk purse from a pig's ear (or whatever the expression is). The cost was just under $2000 ($Can) in a pricey market for approximately 45 sq. ft. of stone, other materials, plus labour. Well worth the expense in my book.

Cheers,
Dave

 

The only way to totally remove paint from brick is with sand blasting, which can be costly, messy and can actually destroy your brick depending on how porous and soft it is. Even if you tape off every area of the rest of the room you are left with months of clean up of fine sand in your carpet, crevises of room etc. My sister has a sister in law that owns a fireplace restoration store and this has long been the only real effective way of total removal of paint off of brick and old mantle surrounds from other era's as well as todays era. There are so many products you can use to cover the problem such as building a new case around the exterior brick. Simple use of mortar and flag stone etc to form a new front over existing brick but you must make sure that the brick that is existant is sealed, in good condition and still has its heat resistant surface in tact. Never put any product or build around any damaged fireplace. But honestly I would look more at a build around in most cases because in the event that your fireplace ever needs repair, loose brick, or mortar repair it is a heck of a lot less costly to remove a build around than it is to rip off an overlay of brick or stone put on top of the old brick. At that point you are looking at a total rebuild of the entire fireplace. You can simply attach wonderboard and then attach stone or even tile. I will attach a link where it is discussed and if you scroll down it shows the pictures where someone used wonderboard then simple peel and press tiles to make a very contemporary look to an old fireplace. This is that link - http://johnbridge.com/vbulletin/show...?threadid=7100
There are many other sites that discuss refacing brick fireplaces you can simply type the term - refacing brick fireplaces in any search engine and go from there. I will leave you with one more link that really discusses one womans step to step process in redoing her fireplace that includes pictures it is http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories...6407&ran=42252
hope this helps.