Kicking it in the Suburbs: Be Gone Shiny Brass Fireplace

Since the day we moved in, I have loathed our fireplace doors, and in part the brick surrounding the fireplace. I am just not a shiny brass kinda girl. I have delayed starting this project because I wasn't really sure where to start, but after a bit of research, and a lot of confidence I said good bye to my brass forever.

First, I took the doors off by unscrewing the clips that suspend the doors in them. This is a bit of a process, and you could really benefit from having four hands to complete. However, I did this on my own, and was able to balance the doors before they came crashing down. Next, I needed to remove the lovely part brass/part light wood handles. I bit off more than I could chew when it came to this step because one of the screws was already stripped. Since I like a challenge, I kept trying to remove the screw and therefore, further stripped it. I had enough where with all to recognize I had a problem on my hands. Therefore, I called the local hardware store, and lucky for me, they agreed to help we remove the screw (for free to boot). Perhaps I could have figured out how to do this (willing it to come off did not work), but we have limited tools so reaching out for help really got this process is moving.

After the hardware was out of the way, I got my sand on. I have an electric powered one, and used this to sand most of the brass off the doors. With this process, you are just trying to rough up the metal enough so that it will accept the new spray paint. Once this was complete, I taped and wrapped up the glass doors to protect them from my high heat resistant black spray paint. You may notice in this pic that there are two holes in the metal part of the door. This occurred when I realized the prior hardware was a crazy one of a kind size. Therefore, I had to drill two new holes so that my new black hardware would fit. It sounds way harder than it was. Trust me!

So once my doors were all wrapped up, it was time to get their spray on in the garage. It took about four to five light coats to coat each side of the doors. Patience is the key here because you want to ensure you are allowing the paint to dry in between the coats. I spray painted the inside part of the door first, and then moved to the outer doors.

Once the spray paint part was complete, I then installed my new black hardware. Reinstalling the doors was a bit of a headache because the doors are suspended on these little bracket things, and it was much harder to get everything real aligned than it was to take it apart. I would highly recommend that you have another person assist with reinstalling it, but since I am impatient, and did not want to wait for my husband to come home, I was able to get it all put back together just fine. I few choice words were used, but the end result is priceless.

Ta da......

I am just loving the fireplace's new look. The brick is starting to grow on me. Initially I was thinking of painting it once I had the doors complete, but now I think I am going to hold off on that until I am 100% sure I want to paint it.