Hi Folks,

I'm starting to work through a little project and I was hoping to get some feedback.

We have a Fireplace that was built with a "roman brick" facade and then painted white. It has a very 50s look and we want to change that look. So we want to a) add a wood mantle shelf, b) stucco / plaster over the existing brick, and c) add a bit of a slope to the upper portion of the chimney (the upper portion of the chimney exposed to the interior).

I'm all set with "a", but still struggling a bit with figuring out which materials and process to use for "b" & "c" which are of course connected.

My initial thinking revolved around building a slope off the new mantle (it's large enough so that I can steal a few inches to use for helping to anchor the new sloping material) with something like cement board, covering everything with metal lath (tapcons for the brick, probably paper backed lath), and then doing a 3-coat stucco with a Santa Barbara Mission Finish.

Now I've started thinking about using weld-crete to bond a scratch coat to the existing brick/paint and maybe just wiring the chimney slope portion (depending on what I end up using for material there). The paint is in very good shape, no chipping, no peeling, and the roman brickwork use a pretty big recessed grout line (1/2"). So I'm thinking that I might actually be able to get a decent bond and good keying.

But now I'm even rethinking both / either approach and thinking that I should parge the existing brickwork and then use some other, lighter weight type of plaster.

Anyone have any thoughts? On an overall approach, materials, etc.? I'm just trying to simplify things if I can, and really, we just want to end up with a bit of a slope on the chimney and something along the lines of a SBMF.

Thanks!