When we purchased our retirement home the large fireplace in the living room was dark gray/black stone with dark gray grout, ugh! The mantle is oak and we kept it that way. It reminded me of a medieval dungeon, very depressing! So I changed it to the colors of the Grand Canyon. It took me a long time to select the colors but I purchased 9 different quarts of paint before I selected the 5 I was going to use. I first dusted and brushed the stone, then I primed the entire fireplace with Kilz primer in white. I selected 5 colors (Miami Peach, Indian Cloth, Canyonland, Sunshine, and Santana) from the Behr Masonry, Stucco & Brick paint line. I sponged on the paint colors individually at random and used an artists brush to paint the grout White Onyx from the same line. This was time consuming because we only had weekends to work on the fireplace. And the grout needed two coats of paint because it was so dark.

I wish I had pictures to share. And I love the fireplace now! It blends in well with the rest of the house and is no longer dark and menacing! I did nothing else to the fireplace. I hope this saves someone some time and gives you the courage to try your hands on any projects. I knew nothing about how to achieve what I saw in my head, but I asked questions here and at home improvement stores. I knew that if I had this picture in my head, I could find the information I needed.

Now I'm looking around for more projects to work on, much to the dismay of my DH!