Fireplaces, Heating Stoves, Flues and Chimneys - painted fireplace brick

I'm looking for way to improve the appearance of a fireplace I have in my basement. The previous owners had painted the brick and mortar with white semi-gloss paint. Any suggestions? Can I effectivley paint over it to bring back the look of brick/mortar, maybe beige-brown paint on the brick and grey on the mortar ?? Should it be stripped? I'm looking for an easy, low-cost solution being that this is in the basement in an area I'll use for a bar/pool table. I'm not intersted in knocking out the old brick and installing stone, etc.

thx, Don

Generally, when you paint brick, you are stuck with continuing the same way. The exception would be glazed or faced brick. It is very difficult to remove all the paint from normal brick because of the texture and differences in absorption.

There are may ways to get a brick appearance using multiple applications and rubbing some off. - Look on the painting and decorating forum.

Dick