How to Paint a Wood Burning Stove

If you have an old wood burning stove that you no longer use, turn it into a beautiful focal point by painting it a bright color!

A while back, I shared my craft room featuring this painted wood burning stove which is my favorite part! I’ll forever be hopelessly in love with turquoise and so, even though I considered a few other colors, I am so happy I went with my favorite! I think the bright, happy color adds just enough to this space so that not a whole lot else is required on the walls or windows around it. I’m so lucky to not only have a space with such a fun piece in it but that I can basically do whatever I want to the pieces in my space! I’ve mentioned it a few times before but my house will eventually be torn down so in the meantime I’m painting all the things!

Give a DIYer her freedom and it’ll be her first thought to paint the vintage fixtures haha. But, I really wasn’t sure exactly how to do it and I definitely learned a few things along the way. The first thing I tried did not work out. And I honestly couldn’t find any help online. I tried searching for a multitude of different things and nothing had the help I needed! Eventually I chose my own products and figured it out and I couldn’t be happier!

It wasn’t difficult at all, it just took a little trial and error with some products to get the result I needed.

Materials

Rustoleum Clean Metal Primer //
Latex paint in your choice of color (mine is Behr Island Aqua in satin (Behr Ultra) finish) //
Paint brushes //

Gotta love a good before shot! Can you believe this room?! haha! This was actually the only room in the house that already had no carpet and just the original wood flooring, which made it automatically better than every other room. But this wallpaper! It was like 100 years old! Maybe only like 50…I’m not sure. But it was old. It almost had a painted look to it. It was actually kind of cool..except that it was so ugly. The same wallpaper (not same design, but same age/style) ran through most of the rest of the original parts of the house. Can you believe how different this whole space is now?!

Instructions

When I first started this project, I did a bunch of research into cleaning wood burning stoves. The recommendation I found was to use a vinegar/dawn/water solution. DO NOT DO THIS.
As you can see by the pictures, this cleaning process immediately rusted out my stove. It broke out in rust spots all over :(
I tried to prime and paint over it but the rust spots just came through, even through 3 layers of paint as you can see in the picture.
So then I spent a bunch of time researching how to paint rusted metal. Which was actually so hard to find any useful information! I could not find anything similar to what I was doing. Eventually I just decided to go see what I could find at Home Depot. Once I saw the Rustoleum, I knew that was the answer! I am a huge Rustoleum fan. Their spray paint is hands down the best. And with RUST in the name, I felt like it was a good sign. There was a clean metal primer and a rusted metal primer. The clean metal one said “for lightly rusted metal” on it so I felt it would do the job. I think the other primer wasn’t white so I really didn’t want it.
By this point I was feeling quite discouraged, wondering if I’d ruined this stove forever since the rust had come through 3 layers of paint and regular primer. But the Rustoleum came through! This stuff STINKS. But it works! Not a dot of rust came through it. I believe I did two coats just to be sure. But make sure to ventilate, this smell cannot be good for you.
Then just paint your chosen paint color over the top. I also did two coats of this.
So in summary-just dust your stove, do not clean with chemicals or water. Prime with an oil-based primer like Rustoleum, not a water based one. And then paint your chosen color! That’s all there is to painting an old wood burning stove. Its not complicated, it just took some trial and error for me.

Really happy with this project. It is everyone’s favorite part of this room, it really pops when you walk in! Do you have a fixture like this you’d like to update? Are you too scared to do it? I figure the worst case scenario (like in a survival situation and we need the stove), it will probably still work, the paint may just come peeling off or smell or something. But I don’t think it’ll kill us…haha, reassuring I know!