The cast-iron period fireplace in my kitchen had not been looking its best for a good while. The front of the fireplace had glimmers of rust (I’ve since found out you should never clean a fireplace with a wet rag or it will rust - who knew??) with the edges of the fireplace having a chalky white rust all around it. Before I completely redecorated this space I needed to sort it out. It was suggested to me by a lot of people that I give the fireplace a coat of black metal paint, but I knew that would completely ruin the beautiful iron shine and make it look flat and inauthentic. Instead, I wanted to restore this fireplace properly, so I did quite a bit of research into how I could do that. I purchased the following products and hoped for the best - luckily the fireplace turned out better than I could have ever expected! This is why I want to share this on the blog today, as I was so happy with the result and thought it might help others (this post is in no way sponsored, I purchased these items with my own money).

YOU WILL NEED:

Liberon Iron Paste / protective dust sheet / rust remover gel / wire brush / round tip paintbrushes / microfibre cloth

First up was to remove the heavy-duty rust around the edges, so I purchased some wire brushes and scrubbed off as much rust as I could with them. Once that was done, using a dry brush, I brushed the dust particles off the fireplace.

I put an old towel on the floor to protect it (use this or a thick dust sheet to protect your floor from the harsh rust-remover) and used a round-tip paintbrush (usually meant for painting doors and windows) to apply a thin coat of Hammerite Rust Remover Gel on the surface of the fireplace. I applied a more liberal coat of it around the edges. I used a round-tip brush as this way it got into all the nooks, crannies and detailing of the fireplace. I left this rust remover gel to dry overnight as per the instructions (the good news is you don’t need to wash it off!)

The next day the fireplace was looking a hundred times better already! The rust had literally evaporated with the gel and the remover had already given the fireplace a new sheen. I gave it a wipe down with a dry piece of kitchen roll to make sure there was no residue, then it was time to apply the iron paste.

I used Liberon Iron Paste and it was amazing. As I was re-painting the walls I didn’t worry about protecting them, but if you are not then I would use a low tack tape to protect them from the paste. I applied the paste using another round-tip brush. I applied it liberally like I was giving the fireplace a coat of paint. I left it a good few hours as per the instructions before then buffing it down with a microfibre cloth.

As you can see the result is brilliant - the fireplace is as good as new! All these items cost me around £20 so this was a real budget restoration job.