Peter, if you will look down the board, you will find many questions from people who want to remove paint from brick of stone. This is difficult to impossible to do well. Once you paint brick or stone, you will be stuck with doing it forever. You might not like the natural look now, but you or some future owner of your home is sure to want it back. Personally, I think that a painted fireplace or other painted brick or stone is a sign of someone who took the easy/cheap way on all maintenence and would never buy a house with it. It's easy to forget that something like this could affect the future resale value of your home. You might want to give this more thought. Henry in MI