Chimney sweep
How do you follow a blog entry of such importance? By talking about your chimney, of course!
One of the many things I now own, as a result of this whole homeownership deal, is an original 1940s brick fireplace and chimney. The first time it rained after moving in, it rained inside our house, straight down the chimney. A look up revealed the sky. Since then we’ve been keeping a bucket in the fireplace. How attractive.
Yesterday we hired a chimney sweep to take care of our fireplace woes. To me the idea of a chimney sweep is very romantic, very Mary Poppins, singing dancing, all around good times, and especially covered in soot. Sadly, our chimney sweep could easily have been a plumber, electrician or any other handy-man type.
After inspection he told us that the inside of our chimney was in fantastic shape for its age, just beautiful and we should be really happy we don’t have squirrels or raccoons nesting inside. HOWEVER (and you knew this was coming) everything above our great new roof is crumbling to pieces. Bricks are coming loose, important items are missing, blah, blah, blah $4000.
Woah!!!! It turns out your are supposed to maintain a chimney much like a roof, with regular sealings and such. Ours had been neglected, much like the yard and crawlspace. We talked him down, scaled back the plan and then back some more. He figured out how to put on a lock-top damper system and left with a check for $400. Whew!
Now it will not rain inside our house and we can ponder what to do about re-pointing our bricks, replacing terracotta tiles and sealing the whole thing from the evils of moisture.
But what about how it looks from the living room? It is still all sooty and stained. The chimney sweep told me I could scrub all I wanted but it was not going to every look clean. He suggested we spray paint the inside. He likes black, but I’ve seen white and off-white and even purple fireplace hearths too.
I’m planning to get one of those in fireplace candelabras in black or silver. What color do you think I should paint the inside of the fireplace?
do you want this fireplace to be functional? i like the idea of some other color. if it were me, i would choose red or orange or brown, but that is because i like reds, oranges, and browns.
Comment by lonely1 — October 8, 2006 @ 6:33 pm
Like a brick red/orange/brown? That could be very nice and warm looking.
We don’t plan to ever use the fireplace for a fire. I think a nice tiered candlelabra type thing would be nice, along with a nice clean looking interior.
Comment by Marijka — October 8, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art43718.asp
I’d paint them to look like bricks. I guess I’m a traditionalist at heart ;)
Comment by Pat — October 10, 2006 @ 3:39 pm
I like the brick color, but if you can’t match it, then I’d say black … BORING … but then I’d put a pretty fireplace screen in front and fireplace utensils and that’ll look homey and cute.
Comment by rosie — October 11, 2006 @ 2:35 pm