Restoring a Fireplace

"Brett did an amazing job restoring my fireplace to its former glory. He took care and pride and care in his work and I'm delighted with the finished result. You wouldn't think it was the same fireplace"

Shortly after moving to Newport I met a lovely local lady who got in touch regarding the above fireplace. I was asked if I could restore it, She had attempted to strip the top herself and and had realised it would be a much larger task seeing as there were many layers of gloss.

To strip the Gloss I chose to use NitroMorse paint stripper. A face mask is a must when using Nitromorse due to the fumes it releases so keep the room well ventilated and I recommend using goggles too, I applied with a paintbrush and it's surprising how many little flecks fly up into your face. My customer had a lovely cream carpet so newspaper was placed down to protect it. I worked in the evenings, my customer had a young happy chap so we timed my beginning of work to coincide with his bedtime.  I dabbed the nitromorse into the gloss using a paintbrush applying little bits of pressure, then leaving the nitromorse for 45 minutes to dislodge the paint using a mix of paint scrapers I scraped layers of paint away.  

Note- Don't be disheartened if it seems like the wood revealed is stained from the paint or that the progress using nitromorse is slow, it is slow but once you have finished the stripping phase you can get the sanders out.

Many nights later the nitromorse had done as much as it could, now began the sanding phase, again well ventilated room a must, dust mask and dust sheets. I used a mix of a belt sander and a random orbital sander. Both are powerful machines i went with as smaller handheld sanders just didn't have the guts. Working holding big sanders at funny angles and upside down be prepared for an arm-ache! 

Once done and all the dust hoovered up, use white spirit on a clean rag and rub over the naked wood, picks up any excess dust and makes the wood more porous for finishing. I used danish oil to finish the wood again applied with a clean rag and buffed up. 

Those more observant may have noticed that the bricks have been re-pointed. I called a friend for that job as brickwork is currently not in my skill set, Also i repainted the bottom black step. Who knew underneath the several layers of black gloss and one layer of orange gloss hid this beautiful Mexican pine fire place. 

Below, my customer had some spare worktop in the shed and asked if i could cut, route the edges finish and attach to an existing set of drawers once the original top had been removed.

Once measured I cut the worktop with a hand saw and used my router to leave rounded edges as the drawers were head height of my customers child. Finished with danish oil and screwed up from underneath using brackets.

Nitromorse - £9.99 a bottle x 3
Dust masks - £3.00
Danish Oil - £12.00
Rags - £1.00
Sandpaper sheets - £6.00