Reader Question: To Paint or Not to Paint (a brick fireplace & wood trim)

It's time for another reader question!  Today I'm tackling Lisa's family room and the age old design question - to paint or not to paint.  It's the cheapest, most transformative thing you can do to a room but sometimes painting things like brick and wood trim can leave us (and our spouses!) second guessing ourselves.  Lisa has a few things she's considering changing about the space.  Here's what she wrote:

With 2 young kids and a black lab, the carpet in this room needs to go.  I would like to do hardwood, but as you can see in the photos, all of our woodwork is a honey colored oak.  Do we take the plunge and pick a hardwood we like and paint the woodwork?  Or work with the woodwork as is??

The fireplace is a floor to ceiling ugly dark red brick with even uglier gray grout.  The mantel is a large piece of oak wood that I’m not sure we can remove due to the fact that it’s significant in size and seems to be permanently adhered to the brick.  I have considered painting the brick (gasp), but I know how some people feel about painting brick. 

Finally the elephant in the room.....those Amityville Horror/stop sign shaped windows.  They really don’t bring in much light and we have french doors on an adjoining wall leading to the outside that I believe brings in an adequate amount of light. I have no idea why someone would install those in the first place and what to do with them now.

Phew, this is a doozy!  But I do love a good challenge so let's take this one step at a time...

Flooring
Hardwood floors can be a considerable investment and it will completely transform the feel of this room.  I would hate to see Lisa spend money on a wood floor selection she doesn't love just because it matches the existing honey colored trim that she ALSO doesn't love.  So my verdict is paint out that oak trim and get busy picking out a floor you love.  There are so many great engineered hardwoods now.  I LOVE this handscraped wide plank style from Lumber Liquidators.  How beautiful is this?

Virginia Mill Works 5" Potomac Plank Handscraped from Lumber Liquidators $3.89/ sq ft

Look how great it looks with white trim and a wall color almost exactly like Lisa's existing walls!

Fireplace
The idea of painting a brick fireplace can seem daunting but it's actually quite simple.  The wonderful DIY duo of John and Sherry over at Young House Love have a great tutorial on how to tackle painting a brick fireplace (they've done it twice now!)  A fresh coat of white will take that standard, boring (no offense Lisa!) fireplace to a whole new level.  It will look bright and modern and clean and will really pop off the gorgeous new dark wood floors.  Here are some of my favorite before and after painted fireplaces to inspire you.

 

Painted Fireplace from Domino

   

Before/After Painted Fireplace from Modern Maizy

After you paint out the brick, take a step back and assess whether you want to paint the mantel as well.  I'm a fan of both looks - wood toned mantel on white brick or white mantel on white brick. 

Brick painted fireplace from A la Mode Maven

I think in the case of Lisa's room I would paint the mantel white and then distress the edges a bit.  Just enough to make it look like it's an older piece of wood with some age and character.  Then I'd find two vintage wood corbels from an architectural salvage yard and mount them under each side of the mantel.   It's a low cost way to elevate the overall design of the mantel and make it look like the focal point it should be.

Antique Wood Corbels from Etsy

Windows

Now for my favorite part of Lisa's questions - the "Amityville Horror windows".  What a great description Lisa!  Yes, not every room is blessed with gorgeous architectural details and things like funny shaped windows can leave us scratching our heads.  

Here is a rule of thumb: 

Want to make an architectural feature stand out?  Paint it a high contrast color.

High contrast trim makes these gorgeous windows stand out at Project Nursery

Want to make an architectural feature less noticeable?  Paint it the same color as the walls surrounding it.

 

The absence of contrast between the window trim and walls from Houzz

Below I've photoshopped the trim around one of the window's in the same color as the wall.  Now I am not claiming this will cause the windows to disappear altogether (sorry Lisa, only a sledgehammer will do that!) but it will cause them to recede visually and be less noticeable. 

With this less desirable architecture "erased", why not take the opportunity to create some architectural interest you actually like? I love the idea of building some bookcases below the windows on either side of the fireplace like below (picture the windows in place of circular art).

 

We can all use more storage and I think the addition of these bookshelves really adds some presence to this family room wall.

What do you think?  Would you suggest something different for Lisa?  And aren't you dying to see how this room gets transformed?  Please, please, please share photos of what you end up doing Lisa!

If you have a question or design dilemma irking you, drop me an email at honeyandfitz (at) yahoo (dot) com.  I love a challenge and I love searching out pictures to help inspire you to tackle the issue and make your space the best it can be.