Almost there

The entire fireplace has been stripped. There's a bit of residue to strip on one side, but then we'll wrap up paint stripping.

Rather than go through the steps of learning to repoint, match mortar, gouge out mortar and repoint the brick, we're going to seal the brick. There is one crack, but crumbling is minimal and the fireplace is structurally sound. Carrie, over at Brick City Love, wrote a great post about how she exposed and sealed her brick walls. I'm hoping I can have similar success.

And if you're looking for a little more, check out Wendy and Alex's repointing project over at the Old Town Home.

The remaining question is about sealers. Do I use an acrylic based sealer, or a water based poly sealer?