There has been a few projects around the inside house that I have been meaning to get to so I can say the whole inside is done (with the exception of furniture and rugs of course). One of these projects was cleaning the brick wall. This is one of the things that first attracted us to the house and I don’t think it has ever been cleaned. Also, someone who lived here before us thought it was a good idea to paint some of the bricks yellow and green. So this was going to be a two step project. First, remove the old paint and then wash the wall.

My idea to remove the old paint was simple. I would brush paint thinner onto the bricks using a paint brush and then scrape it off . I had never used paint thinner before and have never been one to read directions. I have always found it to be quicker to just figure out things as I go. This is one instance where my theory of directions has failed me. I poured the paint thinner into a plastic cup like I would when painting trim and started to brush the bricks. About 30 second into it I felt a drop and then “splash!” the bottom fell out of the cup! Luckily I had been smart enough to lay towels down which caught the fall. Hmm apparently this stuff was more dangerous than I thought. So after a quick cleanup I decided to use my wine glass from last Saturday’s wine walk.

The first brick I scraped had many layers. First green, than orange and black. I thought, uh oh maybe this isn’t a good idea. Afterall the green and yellow paint wasn’t that big of a deal and hardly noticeable, but I continued and other bricks weren’t as bad.I’m just glad they didn’t paint the whole wall because I think it would be a nightmare to remove paint from an entire fireplace.

Step two: wash the wall. This part was also supposed to be easy. I decided to use a scrub brush and TSP which is a strong cleaning substance primarily used to clean walls before painting. When I started to scrub I found that by the time I got from the bucket to the top of the wall there wasn’t much water left in the brush. Great, another problem. I got out a spray bottle, turned it to the strongest setting, poured the TSP in and sprayed the entire wall. After it was a little wet I was planning on scrubbing it down. Of course I forgot how porous brick was and the water quickly dried and there was a strong dirt smell that  surround the room. I went back to the scrub brush and quickly scrubbed as much as I could using what water I had left. Finally I was done. This whole process took me about 3 1/2 hours and I only did one side of the wall. I think I will leave the other side for another day…or Andy.

Before

Before

After

After

Here are the before and after pictures of the cleaning. Can you tell the difference? Yeah, I didn’t think so. But at least I know it’s clean…right?