Where to Start When the Sky Falls (Literally)

Bygardeniaandbrick

Renovating a Forever Home — Part 1 of 5; this post contains affiliate links.


We knew the roof needed replacing when we bought the house.That was fine. That was on the spreadsheet. We are responsible adults who read an inspection report.Then the living room ceiling fell in.

Not dramatically, if that helps — nobody was under it, nobody got hurt. We weren’t even living there yet. But there is a very particular feeling that comes with driving over to your house, the one you just bought, and looking up through your own drywall at open sky. Somewhere between “well” and a very long exhale.

So that’s how our renovation started. Not with a mood board. With a ceiling.

The house made the schedule and did not consult us

Here’s the part that made it sting: none of this was optional, and none of it could happen out of order.

Roof first — obviously. Then drywall across the entire main living space, which is why every photo from those first weeks looks like a lumber commercial. Exposed framing, wiring running through it like veins, insulation just out there living its life.

And underneath all of it, the original hardwoods running through the living room, kitchen, and dining room. Not new floors — the real ones, the ones that came with the house and have been there longer than we’ve been alive. They needed refinishing. Refinishing couldn’t happen until the drywall dust stopped falling.

Roof, then drywall, then floors. Three dominoes, in order, no skipping.

And this wasn’t a house we were slowly improving on weekends. This was the list standing between us and moving in. We were staying with family in the meantime — generously, kindly, with more patience than we deserved — but everybody in that situation is counting weeks, including the people who’d never say so.

So every single thing I actually wanted to do — paint, shiplap, the pretty lighting I’d already saved sixteen photos of — was sitting at the end of a line I couldn’t move.

Turns out waiting is exhausting

You drive over. You walk through. You can’t touch anything, because touching it just means redoing it after the next crew leaves.

I was not prepared for how discouraging that was. It wasn’t hard work — it was no work, which somehow felt worse. I kept opening Pinterest, saving things I couldn’t do yet, and closing Pinterest.

Eventually I went looking for literally anything that wasn’t blocked.

Enter: the fireplace

It was already there. It was brick, so drywall dust couldn’t hurt its feelings. Nothing else in the sequence had to happen first.

It was also covered in decades of paint splatter, mortar haze, and a chalky white film that made the whole wall look exhausted. But underneath — real red brick, with the kind of color variation you cannot buy new. That only comes with age.

 

 

Was it strange to be scrubbing brick in a room that was 80% framing and plastic sheeting? Yes. Did I care? Absolutely not. It was the first thing we got to choose instead of react to.

“Low lift” is not the same as “easy”

I want to be honest here, because low lift makes it sound like a Sunday afternoon and it was not.

It was simple. Different thing entirely.

Low lift meant:

    • No permits, no contractors, no scheduling. We could show up at nine on a Tuesday night. Reader, we did.

    • No dependencies. Nothing had to be finished first.

    • Stoppable. Do a section, leave, come back next week. Nothing goes bad in the meantime.

    • Already a disaster in there. The room was a mess regardless. We added nothing to the chaos.

What it required was patience and elbow grease. You go brick by brick. Scrub, rinse, step back, immediately spot six places you missed. There is no fast version. Rushing just means doing the same square twice, which I know because we did the same square twice.

It also required a friend, as it turns out. Mine showed up for this — the tedious, gritty, absolutely-nothing-glamorous-about-it part, hours of it, in a room with no floors and no ceiling. Nobody’s dream Saturday. If you have someone in your life who will scrub a hundred-year-old fireplace beside you and not once ask when you’ll be done, hold onto them. I’m still thinking about it.

How we actually did it

Protect what’s worth protecting. The floors hadn’t been refinished yet, which was genuinely the only upside of the sequencing — nobody was panicking about drips. Still: plastic over the hearth, drop cloths down, tape the edges. Brick cleaning is wet, gritty, and it travels.

Dry pass first. A stiff wire brush knocks off loose mortar haze and flaking paint before you introduce moisture. Get the loose stuff off so your cleaner works on the actual problem instead of the debris sitting on top of it.

Wet pass in small sections. Work an area you can finish before it dries — about two feet square for us. Go bigger and the cleaner dries on the brick and you’re starting over. Ask me how I know. We used a citrus-based stripping gel for the stubborn painted spots, and mineral spirits plus a Large sponges for the rest.

Vacuum constantly. The shop vac earned its entire purchase price in one weekend.

Wear the mask. Genuinely not optional. Old mortar dust and paint particles are not something to be casual about, and a decent respirator costs less than a nice dinner out. Same goes for chemical-resistant gloves — stripping gel does not care about your hands.

Expect to go back. We thought we were done twice before we were actually done. Brick looks different dry, and the spots you swore were clean will reappear the second the light changes. It’s a personal attack.

What it actually taught us

Finishing the fireplace did not make the house look renovated. One clean wall in a room with exposed framing and no floors is not a before-and-after. Nobody walking through would have noticed.

But we noticed. And something shifted.

We’d spent weeks where every decision belonged to someone else’s calendar — the roofers, the drywall crew, the floor guys — and every one of those calendars was standing between us and our own front door. Finishing one thing completely, on our own timeline, broke that. It was the first moment this felt like something we were doing instead of something happening to us.

It also became the whole method. There is almost always something that isn’t blocked. It won’t be the thing you want to do. It definitely won’t be the thing that photographs well. Do it anyway. It beats waiting.

What we’d tell you if you’re standing in a similar mess

Some of your timeline isn’t yours. If the roof has to come first, the roof comes first. Arguing with it is just expensive.

Find the unblocked project. There’s usually one hiding in the gap.

Do it properly even though it’s small. We were so tempted to half-clean that brick and move on. It’s now one of my favorite things in this house, and it would not be if we’d rushed it.

Take the before photo you think you don’t need. I almost didn’t. That wall was embarrassing and I wanted it gone, not memorialized. It’s now the single photo that makes the whole transformation make sense.

Let small count. Still working on this one. A forever home is a long project by definition, and if only the big dramatic wins count, most weeks are going to feel like failure. They’re not.

✿

Everything we used on the fireplace

Nothing fancy, nothing expensive. This is genuinely the whole list.

    • Wire brush set — the workhorse. Get the multi-pack with brass, nylon, and steel; you’ll want all three for different spots.

    • Citrus stripping gel — for painted-over brick. Slower than the harsh stuff and worth it for the lack of fumes.

    • Large sponges — buy more than you think. They wear out fast on brick.

    • Shop vac — wet/dry, non-negotiable. Ours ran constantly.

    • Respirator mask — the one thing on this list I’d tell you not to skip.

Total spend was under a hundred dollars, which for a project that changed an entire wall still feels like we got away with something.

Next up: Paint. Picking a whole-house base white without losing my mind, matching the front door to the shutters, and protecting freshly refinished original hardwoods while painting directly above them — a decision that was either brave or deeply stupid depending on which day you asked me.

✿

Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you — it helps keep this garden growing.