Anne-apolis

 I have recently come back from a holiday in the UK, staying with my sister and brother-in-law in Buckinghamshire. They live in a 1930s house that has had several alterations and additions over its lifespan, one of which was the removal of the fireplace in the front bedroom. One of their neighbours, in an identical house, is in the process of a major renovation, which included the removal of the upstairs cast-iron fireplace, which my sister rescued from their skip waste. The rescued fireplace in its original condition Although there was a legacy of many layers of paint, now in a sorry state, the only serious damage was to the left lower corner, and the cast-iron mantlepiece was beyond salvage. The first task was to clean off many generations of soot and spiderwebs, before starting the major work of removing all the old paint. In any restoration project, the preparation is the most important stage of the work, however tedious and unrewarding it may seem when doing it. Here, I had th...