For some reason, the previous owners replaced the original fireplace summer cover with a modern brass fireplace surround. Luckily, the original cover was still in the cellar, albeit covered in a million layers of paint. Continue reading
Fireplace
Mid-Strip
For the Why Did They Paint Over This? file:
I decided to take a break from stripping the bedroom walls and strip the front parlor fireplace cover. This poor thing has been relegated to the basement since before we bought the house, as the previous owner replaced it with one of those awful Home Depot brass monsters. Here it is in its gaudy paint scheme (which incidentally matches the paint scheme of our front parlor/living room. So. Much. Muppet Flesh paint!)
I wasn’t expecting much from this cover, until the paint started coming off. Unlike the one in our bedroom, which is just black cast iron, this one has a little something-something going on:
Fireplace tile clean-up
The fireplace in the garden apartment looks like this:
It seems OK, until you take a closer look:
Varnish is splashed all over the tile. On the floor, the tile just looks sad. Sure, this tile is over 100 years old but it still has some life in it.
Enter my favorite tool in the whole universe:
Turns out the tiles had a layer of polyurethane on top. Some scrubbing and some Mr. Clean Magic Eraser did the trick:
While the tile is definitely showing its age, cleaning the gunk off it makes a huge difference. Here is the half way point with the right side cleaned up and the left side intact:
Here is a closer shot of the cleaned up border:
A Pink Brownstone in Brooklyn 