How to Paint a Stone Fireplace
Paint has always been my friend when it comes to giving my house a fresh, new look. When I built this house in 2005, I chose this original stone. But over time the mantel became harder to blend in with my current decorating style and appeared more like a patchwork quilt.
Fireplace, before
I wanted to neutralize the multicolored stones with a single color. The goal is to give my space a cleaner palette to work with when I decorate for the seasons.
How I Painted My Stone Fireplace
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The only tutorials online were for painting uniform brick fireplaces, with very few tutorials on painting a stacked stone fireplace like mine. So I’m winging it a bit and hopefully can provide you with the courage to tackle this on your own.
I color matched my favorite colored stone in the existing fireplace. This way it would look as natural as possible.
This is how far I’ve come, this is about 3.5 hours worth of work. The sides are finished all the way up to where I stopped just under the lights.
What paint to use?
I used 1.5 inch nylon brush in a circular motion along with a watered down paint similar to the consistency between milk and buttermilk, the color is Decoart in the color Grey Taupe. I only used 16 oz and this paint gave me full coverage. I didn’t sponge off because I wanted the color to be consistent on all of the stones. Because stone is porous there is really no sheen. It soaks in and is high coverage.
No second step was needed since we loved how it turned out! Now I have a a pretty, neutral fireplace that I could change up each season.
Update, we since sold this house and the new owners LOVED the color, too!
Family Room (with new furniture) 
Painted Stone Fireplace After
Wow, beautiful! I love it all.
You’re so sweet, thank you. I hope I’m done after this step but the trick is to make the color blend with the rest of the house, too!
Looking just GREAT! Think the neutral is really a vast improvement.
Thanks Linda! I think it’s a step in the right direction. Now I’m deciding if it needs a second step. Time will tell.
It looks great. What about the grout? Paint or not?
I have a stacked rock fireplace to the ceiling and love it, no mortar. I am wanting to repaint our kitchen walls to tie kitchen and great room together.Thinking possibly the color you are painting your rock might work for us. Your fireplace is looking amazing! Enjoy your blog.
Thanks Teresa! I like ours much better now that It’s neutralized a bit.
Wow! Love all of it! I have a huge stone fireplace that we just hate. The colors are all sorts of browns and brownish yellows. I knew you could paint brick, but never even thought of painting real stone! How lovely!! Now I ‘m going to have to try it. : ) What brand and color did you paint your walls? I love how they look with the fireplace. We painted ours a greenish-grey to offset all the brown in the fireplace, floors and ceiling beams. But I love how calm and relaxing yours looks. Do you mind if I copy your look? You’ll get full credit when friends notice the improvement!
I think it looks great!! I can’t wait to see how it turns out! Thank you for sharing on Merry Monday! We hope you will join us again next week!
Kim
Thank you!
I’m attempting this. I have the same fireplace. Thank you.
Looks fantastic. So you only used one colour to achieve this look, no white primer first? Now that significant time as passed, did you ever have to go back to add a step?