Thank you Phil Collins for that song dedicated to our fireplace, how thoughtful of you! So you might say I'm obsessed with white...after all the posts about painting on this blog, you're probably wondering how many cans of white paint we've gone through since moving in. I can tell you- ALOT. So this week I started the project of painting the fireplace hearth white and despite my intense urge to jackhammer the entire thing instead, I'd say it went pretty well!
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There were, of course, lots of holes and crevises to cover so my wrist is sore from smashing my paint brush into all the nooks and crannies! After 2 coats of white paint plus primer, I finished with Minwax Water-Based Polycrylic Protect Finish in Clear Gloss. This will seal the deal and make the hearth more durable, you know, since we're doing a lot of tap dancing on it and a lot of wear and tear caused by waiting for Santa to come down the chimney :)
And after painting the hearth, we started cleaning out the fireplace. I was like "Oh ya! I'll just start this on a Wednesday night after dinner...say around 8:30 and then I should be done in like an hour!" NO. Let me tell you...this was our nemesis. We're convinced the firebox had not been cleaned since the 1950's. After a WEEK of cleaning almost every day, we finally had to, literally, throw the towel in. I mean, I was scrubbing with sponges, brushes, towels and it was continuously pure black soot. Dan would fill up a bucket of soapy water each time the water turned black (which was after about 3 complete scrub downs of the whole thing) and then I'd clean it out again! Eventually, I think we got most of it. Definitely a lot cleaner!
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There were, of course, lots of holes and crevises to cover so my wrist is sore from smashing my paint brush into all the nooks and crannies! After 2 coats of white paint plus primer, I finished with Minwax Water-Based Polycrylic Protect Finish in Clear Gloss. This will seal the deal and make the hearth more durable, you know, since we're doing a lot of tap dancing on it and a lot of wear and tear caused by waiting for Santa to come down the chimney :)
And after painting the hearth, we started cleaning out the fireplace. I was like "Oh ya! I'll just start this on a Wednesday night after dinner...say around 8:30 and then I should be done in like an hour!" NO. Let me tell you...this was our nemesis. We're convinced the firebox had not been cleaned since the 1950's. After a WEEK of cleaning almost every day, we finally had to, literally, throw the towel in. I mean, I was scrubbing with sponges, brushes, towels and it was continuously pure black soot. Dan would fill up a bucket of soapy water each time the water turned black (which was after about 3 complete scrub downs of the whole thing) and then I'd clean it out again! Eventually, I think we got most of it. Definitely a lot cleaner!
Next...yes, can you believe the saga continues?? After cleaning the firebox FOREVER, now it was time to paint. I know, I know, you're probably thinking this is a bad idea. The thing is, we don't plan on using the fireplace for actual fires that often. But just in case we want to some day, I talked to several Home Depot employees to pick out the right "high heat" paint. It withstands 1200 degrees! With a painted inside, we were sure the fireplace would look much better! And if you take anything away from this post at all, let it be that High Heat paint is like...TAR!! I thought I was going to pass out, it smelt so strong!!
Hey...nice sunburnt back and pink 80's hair clip :) Well, after one coat, the firebox was all black and looked great. Here is the final finished product:
I'm going to walk away from this now and focus on other things in life! Haha!
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