When we were going through the house w/ the home inspector, I asked him if I'd need a chimney specialist to determine if there was any degredation. He looked up with the flashlight and said it looks remarkably clean. Later, the owner told us that they had never used it. Not once. And they moved in in 1963. Further, she said, the owners before them had never used it either! Apparently, the house has cedar shingles at the time, and they were afraid some ember would start the house on fire. Well, we'll be breaking that trend.
First, though, we've got to do something about that look. White walls, white brick. Who paints brick?
After some online research (of course) I determined that sandblasting might be overkill for this, and it could damage the brick. We wanted to avoid any harsh chemicals, as we don't like using them on principle. We bought some citrus-based stripping gel and started with that.
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| The citrus-based stripper |
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| The carbon brush wheel |
After brushing it on and letting it sit overnight, I attacked it with a scraper. I got some chunks off, but obviously this was not going to get it out of the grit of the brick to the level we wanted. So I bought one of these carbon steel brush wheels and a new Dewalt corded 1/2" drill to turn it with. Oh, and a dual-filtered breathing mask, because this was going to put a lot of paint dust and brick residue in the air, and I don't want me or the wife breathing that in. Oh, speaking of dust in the air...
This was a good move. There was a LOT of dust.
Stopped for a progress shot. You can see where the citrus stripper has removed chunks of paint where the brush wheel hasn't been yet. But the best part is, of course, that the wheel is getting the brick to the distressed look we are after. Unfortunately, it's also wearing out that brush incredibly quickly. We ended up going through 5 or 6 of them in total. Once I had the technique down, I showed it to the wife, who is
