DIY – Painting internal brick

Thought I’d posted this, seems it disappeared….forum gremlins?

I have been tasked with decorating the back room ready for christmas guests.  Turns out the wallpaper was holding on large chunks of plaster to the old chimney breast.  It’s over corners and there is several large areas where the key has gone and its only a matter of time before that comes off too.

Wife has said may as well expose it to create a feature, messy job I know, but probably more doable than me trying to patch badly or pay a fortune for a plasterer

Sadly it’s horrible grey brick, so the thinking is to remove the rest of the plaster on the small chimney – probably talking less than an hour with clean up.  And then paint with white masonary paint.

Questions for those who’ve done or considered it –

1.  Stupid idea?

2. what products did you use?  does it need sealing before hand ?  The sections that are exposed are very dusty

Eventually we’d like to take out the chimney as its removed in the floor below, and it takes up a large % of the tiny back room.  That is definitely not on the cards this side of christmas 🙂

It won’t ned sealing, masonry paint will go straight onto brick, that’s what it’s for. Just give it a good brushing/hoovering/washing beforehand to get as much of the dust off as possible

probably talking less than an hour with clean up.

Ahahahahaha ahahahahaha ahahahahaha ha

And indeed lol.

The beds and joints will be the issue, either riddles with holes of lots of rock hard mortar jagging out. Either painting that will be grim and you’ll want to point it.

I’d take it out* make one mess and be done with it. Atleast tgen when you have to sort the exposed bit you only do it once.

*Under advice etc dropping a chimney on someone with a fat bastard in a red suit wedged inside is generally a bad Christmas gift.

Can’t take the brest fully out now, as its the downstairs bit thats removed, it still has the stack up through the roof so would need scaffolding the whole works to remove it properly.

Re clean up, okay maybe I’m being optimistic, its going to come off in massive chunks so that bits going to be quick….

Re clean up, okay maybe I’m being optimistic, its going to come off in massive chunks so that bits going to be quick…

Its the not big chunks that will suck the time.

My point was really that theres alot of work to make the wall ready for paint. This is a brick wall thats never been exposed so its likely to be a bit of a mess and paint won’t fix that.

Is my experience anyway.

Probably worth a wash coat , followed by a top coat.

Sandtex micro pore breathable paint to allow moisture transfer.

What’s the brick? If it’s old stuff with lime mortar then it’s probably breathable, meaning use breathable paint unless you want it to start flaking off at some point.

Just give it a good brushing/hoovering/washing beforehand to get as much of the dust off as possible

This. When I did this exact job there was loads of old plaster still clinging to the bricks and I had to go over it with a wire brush to remove it all.

probably talking less than an hour with clean up.

What joshvegas said! Good luck with that 😉

It’s not a job I’d be starting with only two weekends left before Christmas!!

The pointing on the chimney breast will be as rough-as-f… for a start! It wasn’t built to be seen.

Yeah, less than an hour is an Edinburgh Festival worthy one liner.

We exposed the (lime mortared) chimney in our room. Took ages to clean it to an acceptable standard and then had to patch bits. It will take yonks. Best bet IMHO is either a plasterer, or have a go with some tapered edge boards, tape and filler. I managed to make some rooms look not awful with that method and a lot of sanding. If you paper over the top it’ll be even easier.

Sugar soap it. Twice. Once with a scrubbing brush then with a car sponge. Then when its thoroughly dry & depending on how well it holds together I’d consider prepping it with some SBR or a PVA solution. Is the chimney capped and vented properly?

Fully expect everything you possess to become riddled with plaster and mortar dust, particularly if you set to it with a wire brush.

Oh and that’s a full weekend’s work at least.

For christmas.

Stable some material to the wall in a drapey manner.

Deal with it when you have more time.

You will only make things worse in time for Christmas unless you are taking time off.

Hoovering the entire house and your arse crack alone will take you to new years.

have a go with some tapered edge boards, tape and filler.

This or glue some MDF T&G boards over what’s left and paint.

Sods law dictates that your original plan will go badly.

okay some pics:  no idea on brick type or whether chimney is capped, its really tall and not accessible.  The bottom section was removed at least 2 owners ago, so if it wasn’t capped I’d think we would have spotted some problems with damp

as you can see someone in the past has patched the cracks, pretty much the whole side moves when you push on it and is ready to come down.  sections of the front sound hollow too so have lost their key

patching is possible, though I doubt it will look nice….

Remove the old plaster and stick some plasterboard over it. Tape and fill the edges. Abrade the filler when dry and then paint.

Yeah i wouldnt patch that. Okay fair enough the removal of the remaining plaster might be quite quick.

The problem is the condition of the bricks. All those broken corners, cracks in the jointing and random holes. Paint won’t cover them. Theres a good chance it will look worse. Alot worse.

Having said that… The wall generally looks quite even and flat. I’d probably just remove the plaster to solid and take stock, accepting no further action might be the best course of action until after the holiday.

plasterboard is a good shout, hadn’t thought of that, reckon I’ve even got some in the back of the shed.

going to remove the really loose bits this evening and see what state its in.  may get away with leaving the front face alone for short / med term

it needs to be habitable, (ideally!) look nice for the 28th Dec

budget allowing the whole thing is coming out in the next couple of years as its redundant and takes up a big chunk of the room

It’s the bits that are still stuck to the brick that worry me ……. could be hard to get off.

I agree that chimney needs to come out but it’s a big job as the stack needs supporting in the roof.

Good luck!

Can’t take the brest fully out now, as its the downstairs bit thats removed, it still has the stack up through the roof

If the downstairs bit has been removed, what is supporting this bit of chimney breast, the bit in the loft space and the chimney stack up on the roof?

Is this on an external wall, or adjoining a neighbour’s property? Have they also removed their ground floor chimney breast?

You might have an awful lot of unsupported weight there…

Short answer is I don’t know what is holding it up, but, I did have a structural engineer look at it as part of works I have had done recently, and he didn’t seem too concerned, other than advising taking it out was a good plan

Its quite a narrow tall chimney – behind that is the family bathroom so its fully internal to the house.  I think it might have been a later addition for a boiler downstairs at some point.  There isn’t any evidence of an open fire which we have in other rooms.  You can also see a metal flue of some description sticking out the top, the house seemed to have some major remodelling in the 50s so possibly from that era at a guess.

Looking back at previous sales photos its been like this for at least twenty years possibly more

How temporary of a job are you planning on doing?
If it’s just to get you out the other side of Christmas & your guests visiting, I’d be tempted to just get some thin sheets (MDF/OSB/Plyboard?), screw them into place & then paint with white emulsion.

Then resolve properly come the New Year.

That Brickwork looks grim, Ill wager itll look crap when you get all the plaster off

either do it properly as lambchop says, my only caveat as a crap plasterer is that youll end up having to sand lots and that dust gets everywhere

With no prior skill I did a massive conservatory, including the curved roof, it took months caused a huge mess but got there in the end.

having a few good tools helps, youtube will show you how

or cut a bit of plasterboard, fill the gaps, sand and paint/ wallpaper over it and worry about it falling apart at a later date

Those…

…look like lightweight insulation bricks to me – like concrete aero bar.

They are as soft as cheese and crack as soon as look at them. The plaster will fall off 90% of them, but be stuck like the proverbial in the other 10%, to the extent that you will likely pull chunks out of the bricks getting it off.

I’d abandon the plan of getting them to look presentable – strip the old plaster & replace with plasterboard IMHO.

The knack with filling joints is scrim tape and several thin coats of easifil. Thin coats dry quickly so build up layers until you get to the level you want. Then it’s minimal sanding. If you go in with a bit thick coat of filler that is proud of the finish level you’ll be sanding forever and creating shed loads of dust.

here you go, 5 minutes with the paint scraper looks like a big old crack hence the plaster loosing its key – been like this along time as it had been patched up before under a few layers of wall paper:

joshvegasFree Member
For christmas.

Stable some material to the wall in a drapey manner.

And then add your choice of a BabyJesus, 3 wise men, a donkey or two, a manger etc for the full effect

It looks like some of those bricks have cracked which suggests movement.

It looks like some of those bricks have cracked which suggests movement.

Which, as its been stated theres no chimney below it could mean they didn’t put much there in to hold it up….

I’d be getting rid of that as soon as I could.

I removed chimney breasts from 4 rooms in my house a couple of years ago. Its an easy job, but the shittiest job in the world ever! I think as standard brickies just fill the bit around the flue with any old shit. I was sneezing black snot for about a week afterwards, even though I was wearing a good mask!

ok run out of time for lunch.  I found a hatch.  Any ideas what this was?  That flue inside looks mighty shiny and new.  two full henrys full of debris inside the hatch.  Old school wood screws indicate the hatch itself is old(er) than the flue inside

I’m reckoning the section to the left of the chimney is just boxed in for the flue, but, it seems solid and the ‘shelf’ bit above looks old so not sure

No dust sheet down! [insert shocked emoji!]

Any ideas what this was?

I assume for access to the chimney to clean it?

Edit: No, surely it can’t be – that would be bloody dangerous surely?

And more vertical cracks – I was once told that if they follow the mortar lines then it isn’t necessarily an issue – just general light movement, but if they are straight and go through bricks, it is more critical. Saying that, they are lightweight bricks so perhaps they break more easily?

carpets going in the bin so not bothered with it.

tomorrows job is going to be boards up and see whats under the chimney…. have decided it needs to come out as soon as weather is okay enough to be doing stuff on the roof.  Needs the stack taken down before I can do the internal stuff.

Its surprisingly not that dusty….stuff is just coming off in big chunks.  I am still wearing a mask / gloves / googles

This was supposed to be a quick re-paint job.  *sigh*

The wall the chimney is against looks like it was plastered prior to the chimney being built, so I’m thinking it might not be toothed in,  That said its a lot wider in the loft and above the roof, so maybe there were two flues inside the stack with a brick seperation

Go for it …

I whacked emulsion over an internal brick wall in my down stairs toilet … Looks great, a nice dark/rich blue.

What’s the worst that can happen?

If it doesn’t turn out as expected, make good after xmas.

Good luck

Edit …. sorry looks like I was too late

Double good luck now

Plaster was holding up the block work…

Supply your guests with hard hats and an emergency escape ladder out of the window 😉

These bricks are classed as sand/lime hydraulic pressed then baked in a steam autoclave probably built in the late ’70’s

If they are 65mm deep then metric or a few mm thicker imperial but the change over was late 70’s

That died a while ago that type of manufacturing of bricks, lack of adhesion for plaster/harling probably the main reason

They will have a frog not holes

Jesus that basically a bunch of half brick columns at the point with zero ties, theres more crack that brick!

I told you to staple some sheets over it for Christmas.

I’m heartened to see that it isn’t just my house where every small job turns into a mission. The last one was redoing the wallpaper in the hallway then recarpeting the stairs. Which degenerated into discoving the plaster was shot, so stripped back to brick and redone, removing the old carpet post plaster removal revealed that the stairs were built out of at least two different staircases and knackered to the point of needing replacement, buuut they also had wiring running through them that needed rerouting, this also requiried the understairs toilet to be redone, which revealed that the stairs were held up with a brick wall that formed part of the door to the understairs loo (the “lintel” was two pieces of metal shelf), during this one of the acro-props went onto a void in the tiled halway floor, cracking a tile, tapping the floor revealed numerous voids, requiring the whole floor to be replaced in the end.

My partner was 7 months pregnant at the time. Which added some extra spice to the proceedings. We settled at doing the stairs and then getting everything else done later.

It’s finished now, but if we buy another house we’re getting one with a recently redone hallway.

On the plus side OP.

Thats a legitimate “we can’t hot you at Christmas” card to b played.

This was supposed to be a quick re-paint job.  *sigh*

Now look what you’ve done!!!

I have been tasked with decorating the back room ready for christmas guests.

That seems like a long time ago already!

Looks like we’ve got the Xmas thread sorted.

Oh yes, every job turns into a bloody nightmare – last time I decorate inside I ended up rewiring the hall as I whilst I had the boards up in the bedroom…..  hence my reluctance to touch anything these days!

bricks are 6.5x11x22.  My guess was 50s but 70s is just as likely, useful input thanks!  Its been there a long time, and there have been several attempts at patching the plaster and then wallpapering over  Not sure when the lower part was removed.  Shiny flue makes me think it was in use more recently than I first thought

all the plaster is off the chimney looks like it isn’t keyed into the wall or the bit to the left in the pics.

any ideas how much removing the stack and making good the roof is likely to be?  Once its internal I can do the rest

Still not decided what to do temporarily – I’m thinking some plasterboard over the top will do the trick as a temp measure before its removed.