How to Remove Paint from Brick Fireplace

Do you have a painted brick wall or painted brick fireplace and want to know how to remove paint from brick? You’ve come to the right place! We had a painted brick fireplace in our home and I researched the best way to remove paint from brick indoors. In this post, I’ll share the exact step by step process I used on our white fireplace to remove paint from brick!

Note: This post may contain affiliate links, you can find more information in my disclosures here.

Materials

• Painters tape with plastic
• Paint stripper (this is one of the few paint strippers that can be used indoors)
• Foam brush
• Putty knife
• Copper scrubbers (I got mine at the dollar store, a wire brush would probably work as well)
• Scrub brush (I also got this at the dollar store)
• Gloves

Step 1: Prep and tape off the area

The first step before any actual brick paint stripping was to clean the fireplace and tape off the area around it.

I really like using this painters tape with plastic attached to it, it just makes the whole process of taping off so fast and convenient!

I applied the painters tape around the whole fireplace to avoid any paint stripper getting on the floor or walls surrounding the fireplace.

Step 2: Apply paint stripper to brick

Once the area was prepped, it was time to start the brick paint stripping process.

To start removing paint from brick fireplace, I put on my rubber gloves and applied the paint stripper to each brick with a foam brush.

The paint stripper I used here had a pudding like consistency so it was easy to spread out but thick enough to hold onto the brick.

Once all the brick was covered, I let the paint stripper sit based on the instructions and do its magic!

Step 3: Scrape off paint

Next, I started the paint removal by scraping the paint off our fireplace with a small putty knife.

Here’s a more detailed look at getting paint off brick with the putty knife after the paint stripper did its magic:

Once I got that upper layer of paint off the surface with the putty knife, I used the copper scrubbers and warm water to get more of the paint off:

This is kind of a messy and lengthy process but worth it!

Step 4: Clean the brick

Lastly, I ended up cleaning the brick off with a scrub brush and I vacuumed up any debris around the fireplace.

Note: I was okay with some paint left on the mortar and the brick but if I wanted to get a super clean surface, I probably would’ve had to repeat the entire process at least once based on how many layers of paint we had on our fireplace.

Brick fireplace after removing white paint

Here’s a before and after of our fireplace!

Before:

After:

I hope this post was helpful in showing how to get paint off brick and specifically how to remove paint from brick fireplace! As always, feel free to reach out with any questions!

Different versions of this fireplace

Fun fact: I ended up going through a bunch of different versions of this fireplace that I didn’t like after removing the paint. I started out by applying German Shmear:

Then, I made the fireplace smooth and partially stenciled it:

Finally, I added rounded faux brick in an offset pattern and painting it white again which I ended up loving!

Sometimes you just need to test things out and it might take a few tries before getting it just right!

Tina