Bye Bye Ugly Red Brick Fireplace

I cannot begin to tell you how stoked I was to finally get rid of the (non-working) red brick fireplace.  It was so gross...dirty and ugly.  It's finally gone and this is how we did it. 

The before:

I told you it was GROSS!!! haha.

Because I am super scared of spiders I asked Chris to clean the fireplace.  He was surprisingly excited to help.  Usually he hates my projects. To clean the gunk and grease he used the product Dirty Jobs (with bleach)

Our next steps were to caulk any holes and cracks around the fireplace, then began priming and painting.

I used one coat of primer on the whole fireplace and used two coats of paint, flat black in the inside and semi-gloss white on the outside.  I probably would have been okay with one coat of paint but I wanted to make sure the paint was even and I didn't miss anything. 

This was our end result.

I still need to get some new decor.  All the items on the fireplace are from the guest room (the green kind of clashes with the gray).  I think that means I need to visit Home Goods soon.  If you have a Home Goods in your area it's a MUST for home decor.  It's the TJ Max of home goods...but so much better. :)

What do you think?  I am so happy with it.  It changes the whole room...it's so bright and clean looking!  I still want to change the mantle (it's a gray marble) and tile the hearth (I painted it white temporarily).  These will be good jobs when my father-in-law visits.  He's much handier then we are.