Why, Yes You Can!

My rather busy day today started with a trip to the vet for these two.

It was time for their annual rabies vaccinations, and semi annual heartworm preventative shots.  Probably a good thing, because getting dressed and taking them into town kept me from sitting around doing nothing all day.  The good news is, Rylea has lost 6 lbs since her last visit in April.  I tried to switch her to old dog dog food, and she gained weight.  I switched her back to fat dog dog food, and she's lost some.  She's still chubby, but not as fat as she was before.

I spent the rest of the day working on stripping the paint from my bricks behind my wood stove, and I discovered that with copious amounts of stripper coupled with copious amounts of scrubbing with a wire brush, yes, you can strip paint off of almost any surface. 

Some of you may wonder why I don't just paint over what's there.  This is why:

First of all, there are already two layers of paint on these bricks.  Secondly, the top layer was very sloppily applied -- a thick, gloppy coat with runs and ridges, and it just looks bad.

When I did my little spray paint experiment yesterday, it looked even worse.  Every glob of paint seemed exaggerated, and every drip seemed to leap off the bricks at me.  And finally, I'm not sure what kind of paint they used, but it's very sticky and rubbery.  It feels almost like plastic instead of paint.  It's stretchy, and peels off in huge pieces.  I don't like it at all. 

But, why go to all that trouble if I'm just going to replace the whole thing?

Because it will probably take several years until I'm in a position I can spend that kind of money, and I have to live with it every day until then, so I decided to go ahead do something I can live with until that time comes.  Thus, the stripping...

I'd seen a video on YouTube where you can use Easy Off oven cleaner to strip paint off of bricks.  I had a can left over, and since I can't use it on my oven -- having a self cleaning oven in the new house-- I dug it out and tested it on these bricks. It works pretty well, actually. 

After several applications of Easy Off, and about an hour's  -- cumulative, not continuous -- worth of scrubbing with a wire brush, I got this much done. 

I know it doesn't seem like much, but most of the time was spent waiting for the Easy Off to soften the paint so it can be scrubbed off.  You can't really tell from the picture, but that's about 15 - 20% of the total brick work.  It's the ridges that makes it so difficult.  If it were smooth bricks, I'd probably be done by now.  Now that I know it can be done, I finally feel like my project is moving forward.

This one little section at the top, I got through both the white and the black layers of paint.   I only stopped because I ran out of Easy Off.  It works well, but the fumes will run you out of the room.  Next time I go into town, I'm going to look for some of that fumeless stuff they're supposed to have out now. 

In the midst of spraying stripper and scrubbing bricks, I finished this beret.

It's my Knit Picks Chroma yarn in Vermont, and the pattern is called Autumn In Garrison.  I gave it a good soak in Wool Wash and now it's happily blocking over a plate.  On a snake tank.  What can I say?  You make do with what you have.

When I finished that, I cast on a new baby hat. 

I found a new charity to knit for.  It's called Little Hats Big Hearts, and they give out red hats to newborns during the month of February.  The red is to raise awareness of heart disease and heart defects.  I'm sure they'll have more information that they pass out with the hats. 

I may only get a few done this year, but if I knit up all my red yarn through the year, I ought to have a bunch for next year.  Oh, and they only want cotton or acrylic yarn, and I have a bunch of Red Heart burgundy left over from my Jayne hat making days.

It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow, so my plans are to work on my bricks and knit more baby hats.  The good news is, all three of my teams -- LSU, Navy, and Texas -- are playing at different times, and all on channels I get, even Navy!  Woo Hoo!  I ought to get a lot of knitting done during three games. 

Now, let me go and find my boat head thing for that there Navy game.