You can, but it looks like that brick is repeated in the next room so if you want them to flow you may want to consider painting the other brick in the home too

In my opinion a white wash on the fireplace brick would lighten the room and create a focal point. I love the dining table.

Yes, it will brighten up the space, you have a lot of items within the same color tones. It's a beautiful architectural feature, make it stand out!

Call me the contrarian but I wouldn’t. If anything, I’d paint the wood paneling (but it’s hard to say—can’t tell the nature or quality of the wood from the photos). But the real question is, why? What problem are you trying to solve? I’d resist change for the sake of change. Houzz is currently loaded with white-washed brick fans. Is it the pickled pine of this decade, and in 10 years we’ll be wondering why we attached to a passing trend so vigorously?

The wood likes like knotty pine. If that the case, paint the wood rather than the brick.

I'd paint the wood paneling first -- would lighten the whole room, and the rustic knotty wood there is pretty different from the more finished wood of your table. But I suspect somebody in the house is in love with the wood. Just remember, painting brick is forever...

Might be too stark for the room. I’m in the either whitewash glaze or paint the paneling camp. I think just even a warm white might look too stark considering what the rest of the room consists of. Good luck.

I would not paint the fireplace. I would remove the paneling and paint the walls. The paneling is too rustic for the style of the house, IMO. The room will feel much larger with the paneling gone. The paneling is competing with the fireplace.

Before I whitewashed the brick, I would whitewash the dark paneling or paint it. The brick isn’t the problem, the dark paneling is the problem. And I agree the clock is too large.

I would replace that clock with a piece of art and leave the brick as it is.