I think one of the hardest parts of even the lightest of renovations is sticking it out until the end. It takes patience to see a project from conception to completion. It takes little reminders that it will be done if you just keep chipping away at it. And that even though it may be in a state of semi-completion for a few months, one day it will be finished.
I’m finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with stripping the fireplace brick. After staring at the half-finished fireplace all winter long, silently cursing myself for not finishing it last summer, I’m excited to have gotten close to the end of the job. We finished the front last year but the sides have remained untouched. It was kind of neat to see the difference between the stripped bricks on the front and the side bricks that were still covered in dark gray paint. It made me really appreciate all the work that it took to strip the front.
I started the right side earlier this spring.The Citristrip is doing a great job at pulling off the old paint. It takes a couple of coats and a liberal amount of elbow grease applied to a steel brush, but it the paint does come off. I’ve developed a system with plastic bags and painters tape that make cleanup a little easier. That was important because I was able to work on a few rows of bricks at time. Well, I finally wrapped up the right side a couple of weeks ago. And over this past week I’ve managed to get most of the left side stripped as well.
There are a couple of projects that have been on hold until we’ve finished stripping the brick. We want to grab a couple of cabinets to place on either side of the fireplace (giving up on our idea of having the original built-ins rebuilt) and then we’ll want to repaint the entire living room and all the trim. Little by little (brick by brick!) we’re making progress. All it takes is a little patience.
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