DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

Hey friend!

I hope you’re having great week! After letting my elbow tendonitis rest for a few days I dug my heels in and got the chimney exposed in what will be our bedroom! It turned out even better than I’d hoped! I’m excited to share how I DIY exposed brick chimney!

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Exposing the Brick Video!

You can check out the video of this project here!

How to Expose a Brick Chimney

This isn’t the first chimney I’ve exposed. I exposed one in our last house too 🙂 The only tools I used for this project were: a hammer, a crow bar, and a screw driver. And after I got the baseboards removed I was hoping it would go fairly  quickly as it did with the last chimney. However, that wasn’t the case haha so I had to adjust my technique!

With the one I had done before I was able to hammer my crow bar pretty far up between the brick and the plaster and remove pieces the size of a sheet of paper. But this chimney pre-dates the one I had done before by about 40 years, which I’m thinking made all the difference. This chimney’s plaster was holding on!

DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

Removing the Plaster to Expose the Brick

The method I found that worked the best for this particular chimney was to work my way up hitting and breaking loose about a 4-6 inch section at a time with my hammer first. Then I would hammer my crow bar underneath to remove that section.

Corner Chimney Brackets

On both chimneys I’ve exposed there have been these corner brackets, which are attached to the brick with nails. I used the same technique of getting my crow bar under them and then tapping and pulling them out with the hammer.

DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

How Long Did It Take?

From start to finish this project took at least one entire day. The most tedious spots were beside the window moldings where I had to use a screw driver and hammer to break up and wedge out mortar. And then there’s the whole cleanup fiasco lol! I highly recommend laying down a blanket to protect your flooring and a sheet of plastic to catch the mess!

DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

Beautiful Brick!

Even though it cost me some time I’m really really glad I took the time to expose the brick chimney! I consider waiting but waiting for what? Lol! In my experience if you’re already in a room making a mess you might as well make a really big one! Otherwise I highly doubt it will ever happen!

Also this brick is what dreams are made of! I can’t believe how beautiful the color is! If you noticed there are some black areas those are just soot and wipe off easily! And I’ll be sharing how I clean and finish the chimney soon!

DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

Before

DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

After

DIY Exposed Brick Chimney

I hope you enjoyed this fun diy exposed brick chimney project as much as me! I can’t believe how much warmth and interest it has added to this room! We have 3 chimneys in the farmhouse and they’re on both floors! Soooo I definitely see more chimney exposures in our future!! 😉 But now I’m ready to caulk and fill in the cracks and seams and get this room painted!!

Thanks so much for stopping by the blog!!

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