At the Charleston Mint house – a Historic 1850’s Duplex – our unit we have been on a unsightly journey restoring our previously boarded up fireplace.

Lets Recap where we started!

Previous owners decided to board up the upstairs fireplace. This fireplace’s firebox is much smaller – maybe used for cooking. While the main floors fireplace’s (It’s double sided) are much bigger and nicer – even the hearth is in finished brick.

We pulled the plywood off and started stripping the wood. The hope was originally to try and fully strip the wood and stain it. However, this was a failed task. The details coupled with the soft pine wood made it nearly impossible for me and my dwindling patience to be able to successfully strip the fireplace.

Once the plywood was ripped out – we noticed potentially why they closed the fireplace. At least outside of energy efficiencies.

There were some sizable cracks in the concrete that had a lovely amount if black fire rated spray home. All around the wood trim was chicken wire attached via spray home and up into the chimney was also chicken wire with spray foam.

I added wood to the fire surround to cap off the unsightly chicken wire spray foam between the brick and the mantle. & Pulled down the chicken wire in the chimney & added in some insulation.

We re-painted the surround with the same trim paint we’ve used at the rest of the house. I really like the blue against the old red brick.

I finally repaired the holes – cutting out as much as the spray foam as I can and used some ready made concrete patch. A few coats of that and let it dry – I went over with paint.

I ended up buying a stencil – but didn’t like it. So I free-handed the diamond pattern here.

I’m still sitting with the look. I wanted to make sure to keep character with whatever I did – but knowing I had to paint since the new concrete would never match the old.

It’s important to note that our fireplace is inoperable – it will be. This paint is NOT fire-rated. There might be some on the market, but since that wasn’t an obstacle I faced I didn’t worry about it.