WHITE PAINTED BRICK WORK - BUDGET BEFORE AND AFTER REVEAL

Courtesy of Pinterest. I have those festoon lights, but the Poundland battery powered version.

I love white painted brickwork in interiors.

It dates back to my teenage years and my love of a friends parents house.

A converted coach house which had all the bedrooms downstairs and the upstairs housed the open plan living room and kitchen featuring one wall of exposed white brick.

It was so cool and gorgeous,

they even had a cocoon chair hanging from the ceiling, and a pool table to one side,

a full sized pool table... in the lounge!

And I really love white painted brickwork with half the paint sand blasted off.

Usually only found in buildings that have been stripped back to the bare bones as the mess it creates, I believe, makes having plasterers in look like a picnic.

Until this year, white brick work was, apparently, the work of the Devil.

But not this year, an amnesty seems to have been called and white painted brick work is allowed again.

I have no idea where the venom for white brick came from

but for now it has gone

and white brick, is again embraced.

And with an accidental style collide I ended up with white brick...

Looking at my living room with a what can I do to make this better without any money eye

(all money needs to go on painting the outside of the house)

I decided to paint the fireplace

Here it is in it's original grey state.

I dragged out the trusty, never ending bucket of chalk white masonry paint,
£5 from a junk shop a couple of years ago,
and gave it two coats...

and I love how it turned out.
I was worried it would look too white, like a beacon of newness,

but no, it works.

And to my ever deluded eyes, heading towards slightly Californian boho
(if you ignore the total lack of styling I have done around it).

The painted brick in the full living room, thrifty, budget makeover, sans staining laminate. 

Not my house, again!  But lovely use of white brick and matt black paint.

All pictures apart from the unprofessional ones of my fireplace are from Pinterest.
A website I can lose days to.

NB Apparently I should have used special fire place paint, the first few times I used the log burner, it heated the paint on the brickwork and was a bit fumey : /