Fartin' around with the Fireplace

Before.

Sometime in September, 2011, Ado and the Rooster became completely unsatisfied with the state of their fireplace.  The status quo, being a gloss white paint job on the brick and hearth (pictured at right), was simply insufficient to give the living room any sort of character.  The fireplace is, to the best of our ability to determine, nonfunctional.  There is a firestop inside the chimney just above the fireplace itself, indicating that some previous owner decided that the fire risk presented by the circa 1924 chimney was too great to justify continued use.  Given the Rooster's risk aversion respecting fire, we elected not to try to put the fireplace back in service as such, but instead to make it a decorative installation that would give the living room an aesthetic focal point.

The gloss white on the bricks operated to conceal ("gloss over"-- if you'll let us get away with a shameful pun) the cracks in and porosity of the bricks, giving the whole fireplace a bland, faux-fireplace appearance. A+R decided that if the fireplace was nonfunctional, it should at least be beautiful.

Rooster decided that the best way to draw the eye to the fireplace was to apply an unabashedly bright color.  Rooster thought orange would do quite nicely, especially in a flat paint which would create contrast along the mortar lines and give the brick a more natural, weathered appearance that would emphasize their texture. Despite Ado's misgivings about the color selection, she begrudgingly put her full faith in Rooster on this count, citing the fact that he would be made to paint over the orange if it didn't suit the boss's (Ado's) taste when complete.

Our trip to home depot revealed a plethora of orange colors that made the decision as to which color to use fairly difficult.  To make matters worse, when we had settled on a color from the Martha Stewart line, or some other high-falutin' proprietary pallet, the fine folks at Home Depot refused to mix the color in any base except for the one produced by Martha Stewart (or whatever manufacturer the color chip came from.)  Rooster, having worked in a hardware store paint department during high school, knew to a moral certainty that the paint pimps at the Depot had the technological capability to simply apply the same colorant formula to ANY base (including the much cheaper store brand paint) and achieve the same color.  However, in a low-down move that very well could violate federal antitrust law, the paint department refused to do this.

As a result of the Depot's stubborn refusal to get right, Ado and the Rooster were forced into selecting an almost-identical color from the ghetto swatches, where the colors are not tagged with the creative names* that make you really want to buy them.  So, we ended up with "LA606 Pumpkin 6," after eliminating from contention Pumpkins 1 through 5.  Obviously, the asshats at the generic paint factory have little incentive to exercise artistic license, and follow the same naming conventions as do owners of budget Chinese restaurants like the omnipresent "Happy Mandarin Garden III" or "Chin Chin 2."

A deliciously sexy paint prep laborer is very hard to find, but luckily enough Rooster found
Ado in the  Home Depot parking lot, looking for some trabajo.

After the Depot run was done, and the team hatefest directed at Home Depot was duly completed, the real work began.  The first step we took was to rough up the existing gloss finish on the brick with a 300-400 grit sanding sponge.  The dust was there, but not unbearable.  After sanding, we wiped down the bricks and hearth with a chemical solution to further break down the gloss paint, making it sufficiently porous to accept the new, flat coating.  After the surface prep was done, we began the most dreaded part of any painting project: taping.

Having finished the taping (Rooster's lines were-- obviously-- far superior to those established by Ado, but her sweet ass made up for her shoddy workmanship), Websterwood Painting, LP** set to work.  The first few brush strokes thoroughly tested Ado's "full faith" in Rooster's color decision, as the difference in appearance of the fireplace was, initially, quite shocking, as was the disturbingly low level of Rooster's pants.

They say crack kills, but Rooster is still kickin'.

 After a couple hours of painting, having established the esprit de corps that comes along with team efforts in potentially PTSD-inducing situations, we put the final coat on the fireplace, and it was starting to look like it was intended by the heavens to spend the rest of its days wearing Pumpkin #6.  So, to properly set off the orange, and to incorporate another, more natural color element, Websterwood elected to tile the hearth using glass mosaic tiles.  These tiles are exceedingly easy to work with, because they're set on a mesh backing that helps to maintain their spacing while setting the tile.  A light coat of mastic on the hearth, a short waiting period for it to tackify, and then the tiles were set!

Next came the grouting, which provided its own set of headaches.  Primary among these was the repugnant campaign of propaganda from Lowe's and Home Depot which tries to convince consumers that they need a "grout float" to properly grout in tiles.  When we went to the grout/ mastic/ trowel aisle, we discovered that grout floats, like the one pictured at right were going for approximately one year's tuition at an elite private university (actually, about $30... but who's counting?)  Websterwood Painting is no friend of cost overruns, so we came to the mutual, executive decision to pass on the surgical-grade grout float.  Instead, Rooster searched his extensive knowledge archive of rubber products for a solution and arrived at the following conclusion:  let's try a squeegee.  As you can see from the pictured grout float, the operative parts are simply rubber edges set at an angle.  So, after telling the Depot vultures to pound sand, Websterwood took a quick trip to Target, and found the following:
  If you click on the squeegee, you will be redirected to Target's website showing that this GEM of a construction tool (any port in a storm!) has prices that vary by store.  This means that, in Detroit, the little bastard is probably free.  We paid about $3.50, if memory serves.  This amount may have just exceeded the sales tax on the aforementioned grout float.  And, wonder of wonders, it did the same damn thing.  The Home Depot "professionals" can take their vile, lying asses straight to Mississippi (I would say Hell, but I don't want to let those bastards off easy!)

After grouting the tiles in and squeegeeing the excess, we sponged off the excess grout the next day (in fairness, Rooster was VERY concerned that the excess grout on top of the tiles would harden and defy removal efforts if left overnight, but Ado's devil-may-care attitude prevailed when she assured Rooster that the excess would "come right off" the glass tiles even the next day or thereafter.  At 1:30am, it was very easy for Rooster to trust Ado on that count and that trust was vindicated when, approximately one week after the initial grouting, Rooster got back after it with the sponge.  With a little warm water, and having the benefit of the smooth surface of the glass, the dried excess grout slid off faster than greased owl shit on a hockey rink.

The final product, after approximately $200.00 in expense and countless, yet enjoyable man hours (person hours?) looks like this:

With the addition of a decorative burnt bronze-finish fireplace screen, our living room has not only a focal point, but something of a showpiece.  Visitors, even if they were so inclined, cannot fail to notice the orange color, and are very complimentary of the tile (although Rooster suspects those visitors attribute a lot more effort and heartache to the tile job than it actually took).  To finalize this project, Websterwood Painting plans to subcontract with even a marginally-competent finish carpenter to trim out the edges of the hearth, but that, like many other loose ends on home improvement projects, is currently on the back burner.

The thrust of this post is not simply to highlight the fireplace, but, rather, is to point up the work that went into the project.  While Rooster had expressed desire to change the fireplace finish for some time, it would likely never have been accomplished without the loving but firm application of Ado's spurs.  And, once the project was underway, Ado's contributions on both the labor and moral support fronts were invaluable to its completion.  For Rooster, this project was something of a revelation, which is easily translatable into advice to similarly situated gentlemen: if you have a Honey-Do (not honeydew, which I refuse to trust until this cantaloupe clusterfuck is cleared up) List, make every effort to involve its maker, your own honey, in its completion.  Not only do you get some cheap/free labor out of the deal, but the memories made while sharing the sweat, frustration and unwarranted, union-style break times of a project like this will keep you looking at whatever your finished product is and smiling.

-ROOSTER

*As a side note regarding creative color names,  Rooster invites all readers to listen to the Ricky Smiley Morning Show (syndicated throughout Black America) and pay close attention to their resident sweet boy, Gary with the Tea, who craps out a segment called the "Colour [kuh-lure] of the Day."  Gary describes a color with an ultra-premium-sounding name, and then identifies the commonplace name for the color, in the following pattern:  "Here's your kuh-luuuure of the day y'all:  On the high end, you call it Mysterious Blueberry Chaos.  And down there on the low end, honey, it's called indigo."  More Colours of the Day may be found at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35458402975&v=wall

**Limited Partnership ;)