Working on Fireplace Tiles

For the past couple days, I’ve been working on stripping the paint and crap off the fireplace tiles and fireplace surround in my living room. See my flickr photo set for pictures of the project.

My Fireplace

My dad, as a Christmas present for me, crafted the fireplace mantel you see in the pictures. He found two old fireplace mantels that matched, stripped and customized the size of them to make one mantel that fit my fireplace, and then finished it and came by this week (with my stepmom Carol) to install the mantel. So I’ve been working all week on getting the paint stripped off the metal surround and ceramic tiles.

2165 N. Pennsylvania - Walkthroughs

At some point, one of the previous tenants of the house painted the surround, and used fleckstone paint on the tiles to cover them up. If you look at the pictures further up the page, you can see some of their handiwork. Ah, fleckstone paint. Weren’t the 80s wonderful?

I have some more pictures to upload to this page at some point, because I’ve uncovered more of the tile and the patterns in it. Also, the metal surround has a copper coat over the steel that will shine up nicely once I get the paint out of all the little nooks and crannies.

antique fireplace mantel custom fitted for original fireplace
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