Hearth - who goes there?

When we replaced the front door...oh say in 2009 since I can't really remember other than it was pre-baby peanut...I painted the front door black to match our shutters. I really wanted to paint it a fun color but our house color, hideous green, doesn't really lend itself to a fun color. If we decide to stay here another year or two, that will change too. Anywhoozle, I got a little happy while waiting for the front door to dry in between coats and slapped a coat on the bick exterior of our fireplace.

WAY old BEFORE picture before I got jiggy with the black paint:

And AFTER said jiggy-ness:

But the hearth was still not all that attractive. I had toyed with the idea of a do-it-yourself-tile-job but got scairt. I could just see me ripping it all out and then not being able to get it back down. The guys on HGTV make it look easy but lets face it. It's never that easy. So it's sat there...in all it's beige splendor. Not.

Last week we decided to have a realtor open house THIS week (gulp). And I got a little holy-guacamole-what-projects-can-we-do-over-the-long-weekend crazy. Hubby loves when that happens. But I didn't want to spend alot of dough in the process so that brought the project list waaaaay down. This project came up on the list as an easy, quick and simple change that will make the fireplace look a little cleaner crisper and newer. It was as simple as adding some gloss black paint to the hearth and another on the surround. I chose gloss because I thought it might be easier to clean in the long run, although semi-gloss would probably also work. Taping around the edges so as not to get it on the floors (although it's latex so it comes off easily) and 2 quick coats and that was it. I was sure to clean it  with Greenworks before applying the paint but there was no other prep work.

If I didn't have a big black TV over the mantel (not a fan but I chose another battle to fight in the adventure called marriage) and a big black armoire beside it, I'd paint the mantel black too or at least something other than white. But for now, the black hearth and surround looks much better and cleaner (well assuming I can keep the dog hair to a minimum).

Bring on the buyers! (pleeeeeeease!)