Fireplace Cleanup

Mike and I have been looking everywhere for a brick cleaner to clean the ash and dirt off our fireplace. You wouldn't think it be that difficult - yet I got a confused face when I asked my normal handy man experts at Menards. Well, thank goodness we live in Wisconsin and our State Fair is all about gadgets, cleaning products, and food. It's like a warehouse full of infomercials - I LOVE IT. Anyways, I had done some research and knew we needed a product called Quick N' Bright for our fireplace disaster. Luckily we passed a booth selling the product!

So here are picture of what the previous owners did to the fireplace and left us with:

Yuck, right?! I'm not even sure how you get your fireplace that dirty (and how you don't even care)! Anyways, I used the Quick N' Bright paste and steel wool and my muscles. I let it sit for about 5 minutes. The harder stains I had to do multiple times, but the easier ones I could see come off with a little (a lot!) of elbow grease. Here is the after picture

 

Much better! And here are the multiple times I had to use the paste and steel wool on the floor slab. I'll probably do it one more time to see what else I can get off, but it's still a major improvement!

In other news, Mike and I finally got our new doors yesterday! So this weekend will be all about routing the doors out, painting them (and the hinges), and hanging them! Needless to say, I can't WAIT to have doors again (neither can our guests who want to go to the bathroom)!