What paint?

[p111dom]

I'm looking to paint a fire surround white and am pondering over paint suitability. Basically my wife hates the surround which came with the house. She says that it makes the room too dark and doesn't match out oak furniture. I have offered to make a new one in oak but before I spend the cash needlessly I thought I'd paint the existing one white. If I do paint it, are there any special considerations I should take into account because it's next to a fire? The internal doors and skirting boards are painted with Dulux Diamond Satinwood and I have used this to paint other projects in the house. It's water based and easy to spray and gun clean up is easy. Or I could paint it in gloss. Would this be more heat resistant or more dangerous because of the solvent content? Also if it all goes wrong and I end up making one what about a finish for that. I would have used an Oxymol finish but again would this be suitable. Perhaps the surround is far enought away from the heat for it not to make a difference and I'm making up potential problems that aren't there. Any advice or comment on the above welcome.

 

[dennis]

What type of fire is it and how close to the fire does the wood actually come.I personally couldnt say what is best, but this may help someone else.

Dennis

 

[p111dom]

It's an inset open gas fire with a propper chimney. The opening I guess is around 16" wide by 20" tall and the surround is a futher away 12" either side and around 18" away at the top.

 

[skipdiver]

I had one painted by my brother(painter and decorator)and he gave the surround a good clean and sand,wire wooled it,then applied aluminium primer to kill the dark colour,then just painted as normal with undercoat and finished with satinwood.Looked good and there were no problems.Fire was set back in,well away from the fire though.

 

[mailee]

I built a fire surround for a home I owned once and it was closer to the heat than that, I finished it with acrylic varnish and it never bothered it, even five years later it still looked the same. HTH. :wink:

 

[George_N]

I have a wood surround (pine) on my open flame gas fire...similar distance from the fire as yours and with the fire on high it doesn't even get warm to the touch, so any type of paint should be fine.

 

[p111dom]

Thanks very much to you all. I think I'll go for the water based finish just so it's easier to clean the spray gun up.