Change the Color of Fireplace Mortar

LESLIE: Yee-haw! Going over to Texas to talk with Brian about a fireplace. What’s going on?

BRIAN: Hey, I moved into a 25-year-old home and this fireplace [1]; it looks like it’s straight out of the Brady Bunch.

LESLIE: (chuckling) OK.

BRIAN: (chuckling) It’s got stone [2] from the floor to the ceiling and the stone is very nice but it’s got this black mortar [3] that makes it just look kind of dated. And so what I’m wondering is, how can I change the color of this mortar to make it something a little bit more friendly?

TOM: Hmm. Sounds to me like a job for some very strategic painting [4]. (Leslie growls) Because, you know, getting light mortar to be darker is something that could be stained.

LESLIE: That’s something that can be done.

TOM: That can be stained. There are mortar stains that will do that but to try to take a dark mortar and make it light …

LESLIE: Would you have to use some sort of heat-resistant paint?

TOM: Probably not, because there’s not that much – the outside surface of the fireplace doesn’t get quite that hot.

BRIAN: OK, so I wouldn’t have to use a heat-resistant paint, necessarily?

TOM: I don’t think so.

BRIAN: I could just paint over this mortar?

TOM: I think you could paint over the mortar, yeah.

BRIAN: Oh, well, that’d be great.

LESLIE: I mean is it worth it to saw out the mortar …

TOM: No.

LESLIE: … or does that make a giant disaster?

TOM: No, no, no. That would be a disastrous job. That would be so much work it wouldn’t be worth it. I would try to paint it.

BRIAN: OK, so I’d just go with like a flat interior paint?

TOM: Yep, exactly.

BRIAN: Alright, great.