Exposed Brick DIY

A month or so ago, we decided on a whim to expose the brick on our fireplace. We live in a 1930's built home and the fireplace was a textured plaster over the brick. First Dan chiseled a hole just to see what we were working with. We called a contractor over to take a look and he said, he could fix the hole for us that it was a lot of work and we probably wouldn't want to continue. We continued. Over the course of a few weekends Dan continued chiseling. The dust was awful. I am still cleaning dust from our house in places I didn't realize it had gotten to. After chiseling, we used a drill with a wire brush bit to remove the concrete particles. We then used a professional grade cleaner called One Restore to clean the bricks. Once they were cleaned and the debris was cleaned up, I primed the cabinets and bottom brick and painted 3 coats white. The whole project was intense and every weekend we wondered why we took this on, but we are incredibly happy with the final result!

 This was the "before". We actually had a large mirror and other décor, but I didn't take a picture of that.

The first hole

The "after" picture. The lighting in this room make it hard to photograph, but we love the new look!