Should I Paint the Hearth?

The fireplace hearth in my living room is my nemesis. The rest of the room is soft and light, then your eyes stop at the orangey-red tile. To be honest, it used to drive me crazy, then I learned to avert my eyes and honestly forgot it was even there for a little while.
Then lately, my hate on for it is back in full swing. I've been casually dropping comments like this:

It wouldn't be that big of a deal to remove that tile... would it?

What do I need... a chisel?

Wouldn't marble tiles look so nice there?

Needless to say, I didn't get much of a response. Apparently, it is a bit of a job. Plus, any extra cash is being saved up for a bigger project. So, I let it go.

Then, I saw this post over at Elements of Style. Erin had a similar problem and used paint as a quick solution. Duh! Why didn't I think of that? I paint everything!

Here is Erin's before:

And her much improved after:

Doesn't it look a thousand times better? It's not to say that I still wouldn't want to replace the tile later on, but in the meantime it could look so much better. Problem is that she used Valspar latex enamel paint in a flat black. I'm pretty sure that we can't get Valspar in PEI so any recommendations on a similar product?

If you haven't visited Erin's blog, she has crazy beautiful style and has been busy renovating her new home. It's worth a follow! Did you notice that her and I have the same brass birds? I think I'm going to go put mine on my fireplace now too.

Have a great week everyone!