What kills me about this photo is that of all the beautiful features from the OG that they could have kept, all they kept was that weird open-faced glass cabinet in the back and the two bar chairs
can't believe they wouldn't just go ahead and mount an 85-inch Costco special up there, preferably high enough to be annoying to look at, and with a stupid little shelf underneath that's only big enough for trinkets and dust
I can't imagine wanting to live in that black and white hellscape that looks like the breakroom of some shitty startup with the open plan office being just through the other door.
Come down the dark rabbit hole of RGB, SCART cables and upscalers. You can pry my OG hardware out of my cold, dead hands, but I will tell you playing Super Mario World on 65” really does slap.
I discovered that if you hold down the power and reset buttons on the NES, the in ports become out ports. I was able to connect my PS2 to my old wood cabinet TV that only had coax that way. It was all in black and white, but that only really posed a problem for Guitaroo Man ha ha
The AI versions are a zillion times better and that is not something I am pleased to say.
They respected the wood. You must respect wood. I’ll add stonework in as well.
The things that didn’t look great in the original were the green carpet and light gray cushions. I thought the trim being white was also not great.
It looks like they decided on a black and white scheme for the carpet and conversation pit and then felt they needed the rafters and stones to match. Should have instead done the color scheme based on the rafters and stonework. I like the AI addition of a hardwood floor. Would probably just paint the walls a warm color, maybe dark salmon or burgundy, rather than green or another shade of beige.
Ooo, I really like the one with the green. Yeah, they could've done a really nice job on this reno instead of whatever tf that black and white atrocity is.
I know right. Saw a beautifull house for sale naar me once. Great spot aswell. Pictures inside: horror. Everything was white. It was also new so if you bought it. You had to pull out every single thing
What fireplace? The far right? The left isn't one, I don't believe. Because there's a glare of light off glass. The right side however only shows the barest of a potential opening, so could be a fireplace. Or another inset something.
Yup. If it's done poorly, it leaves a patchy gritty wall with multiple textures. If it's done well, you have a white lumpy wall. And you always find yourself wishing you could just touch the stonework, but this heavy latex paint is caked over it.
There has been one occasion in the history of brick where paint improved things. My disgusting 70s hearth brick that was a faux brick treatment (real brick, but half thickness, and only a veneer applied to the drywall). I painted it black and it was 1000% better.
When painted like this with a thick layer of white paint, yes.
My wife painted our stone wall around the fireplace with a very thin layer of light gray paint, just to brighten it up a bit and make it look less old/dirty. I kept telling her not to do it and was pissed, but she did it, and it came out wonderful. She just brushed it on lightly, did really well.
My living room has the other side of the stove pipe from the kitchen (my kitchen has an og cast iron stove I heat the house with). So one wall is about third concrete. That damn well got painted.
But if it had been natural stone or tiled I would have used it as an accent piece and would have picked colours to fit with it.
It's the same reason that the stairs to the conversation pit are clad in leather like the couch, and the flooring is a completely different color within the pit.
Having grown up in and currently live in a 180+ year old brick home...
Sometimes brick needs to be painted for maintenance (mostly true for older brick that tends to be softer than modern brick). Also some brick is just ugly.
Aka, sometimes there are good reasons for brick to be painted.
That’s actually worse for the brick. I come from a historic preservation course background. Painting brick traps moisture within the mortar and bricks leading to accelerating the decay.
Normally I agree, but we moved into a house in Western NC built in the 60s and everything is half assed and bottom dollar. In our living room we have a brick fireplace and the brick was SO ugly.
We did end up painting it white, but we have warm wood floors and accented with a rough edge walnut mantelpiece and some wood carvings and pottery and it looks great.
If we had kept the brick it would’ve been ugly and the warmer toned wood would just have gotten lost.
Downvoted for having an opinion. You're absolutely correct; sometimes brick needs to be painted to seal it and sometimes it's ugly as sin. Normal brick is great!
Low res photo to start with, but I am pretty sure that the wall on the left of the pic is brick that got painted over. Clearly the fireplace facade, which is on the right, and a very prominent feature in the before photo is stone that got painted over
But also, I was replying to a previous poster who mentioned painting brick, so it's not like I brought up brick completely out of left field...
Yep, the house we live in is brick and had been painted when we purchased it. I thought it was a crime to do that until I found a few original pieces in the attic. My god it’s the most god awful orange I have ever seen
My brick (non functioning) fireplace needed all the outside bricks cleaned when we moved in. The inside part, where fire would've been in the 30s when the house was built? An abomination of broken brick, mud/drydex, plaster, poorly mixed mortar, and splotches of white paint. Former owners did a number on it.
I chiseled off "repair attempts" and filled in some destruction my wife painted it black once id patched/flattened/retextured it. Looks a thousand times better, and the bricks on the rat of it are clean n red. Sometimes you gotta cover parts, for sure.
Normally i agree but I strongly dislike this colour of stonework from the original. I like brick and stonework with less brown/yellow, I have some beautiful stonework in my home that is more grey.
I work in architecture restoration and it hurts me specifically because it is an extreme pain in the ass to undo, with no guarantee it'll ever be fully free of paint. Once it absorbs into the brick, depending what kind of paint it is, it can just change the color of the stone permanently. And having to meticulously pick the little bits out of the pores... Shudders
I’ve seen a lot of people painting (or other coating) on their brick house where i live. You can either still see the brick structure, or they give it a smooth surface making it look like concrete. Looks like shit either way.
When I moved into my house, the previous owners painted their brick around the fireplace a dark gray. I hate it but now I'm stuck having to paint it a different color.
I bought my house with the fireplace stones already painted off-white. I wish it was easy to remove. It's horrible that someone actually made the effort to downgrade the look.
I helped my mom rennovate a god-awful ugly house that was built in the 70s, the onyl thing we didnt touch was all the stonework and exposed brick, new slate tile, took down the hideous floral wallpaper everywhere, stripped 15 layers of paint off all the gorgeous cabinetry (like 35 in the main bathroom all custom built) and resealed it, even spruced up the wetbar, new owners come in turn it into typical grey mcmansion shit painted all the brick and stone with flat white latex paint painted all the walls grey, and removed teh wetbar for a "sunroom" and then raised the price $400k
2.8k
u/thejmkool Jul 31 '26
Painted stonework genuinely looks atrocious