Housekeeping Pt 4 - cleaning a marble fireplace.

Well, I bet you thought I had finished with the scintillating housekeeping posts but NO! I have been totally preoccupied with all things house-y and I have a few more posts in me yet on the subject. This one being about cleaning a marble fireplace - or should I say attempting  to clean a marble fireplace.
I am lucky enough to live in an old tenement - I think it was built around 1890 - and as it is such an old building it has many great features that it still retains. One of those features is a very large grey marble fireplace in the master bedroom. Unfortunately sometime in the 1940's the cast iron insert has been replaced by some nasty looking flesh coloured tiles which I have done a first coat of paint on, in order to make them a little less nasty.

As you can see I have been testing a few colours out prior to redecoration! When I bought the flat the fireplace had (as had the one in the living room) been painted with white gloss - or so I thought. Once I started to 'renovate' it I realised that it had several layers of a very sticky brown laquer under the gloss paint which in turn was on top of something else that was almost impossible to get off. However, several hours later with the aid of several tins of Nitromorse and a scraper I had got it to the state that you see in the picture. Due to the brown sticky laquer the fireplace has always had a yellowish tinge so  I thought that I would try to brighten it up a bit. I did a Google search and found that the best way to clean marble is with this..............

Bicarbonate of Soda mixed with a wee bit of water and lemon juice. Here's a tip for you - Bicarbonate of Soda from grocery store 50p, Sodium Bicarbonate from the chemist £1.29 - it is exactly the same thing!!
Anyway, I mixed the bicarb, water and lemon juice into a paste......

and painted it onto the fireplace.

I left it for as long as it took me to have a coffee and then started to wipe it off with a damp cloth. I am glad to say that some of the yellow tinge did seem to lift but unfortunately the surface has been irrepairably damaged by my hamfisted scraping - yes, I have vandalised my own fireplace. Luckily the one in the living room is fine as it only had a light covering of paint and it is also black marble so doesn't show the damage as much. I feel so stupid to have used something so damaging as Nitromorse. Having read all about marble cleaning it seems that the surface is actually very porous and damages very easily and theres' me covering it with evil substances.

I think it looks a little better but it's hard to say. Here is an area before........

and here is the same area after.........

 
and this is the same bit after. I like to believe that it is an improvement - at least I know that it is clean if nothing else!

Comments

[Fancy Elastic]

I can see a difference! Well done, and not to worry, we live and learn.

[caireen]

those look interesting colours - I like the bluey greens next to the marble in the last 2 photos - what have you decided? Cx

[Bella Bheag]

Another chapter in history of the lovely marble fireplace. I like the duck egg blue colour 4th from the left on the mantelpiece.x

[Rebecca]

Lovely paint samples against the fireplace, the way you have sampled them on the wall, could almost be the beginning of Matisse’s 'Snail' painting!Rx