Somehow I’ve lived in our house for the past 9 months and never really noticed that the stone on our fireplace still had installation dust on it – that is until it hit me like a 10lb brick to the face one day as I looked at the fire while watching TV with the hubs.

But once I noticed the white dust on several of the stones it became my obsession to eliminate it. The next day I filled a bucket with hot water mixed with vinegar and started scrubbing. I decided to focus on the lower right-hand side of the stone wall since that would be the least noticeable area if there was any discoloration from the vinegar and it would give me a good section to judge the effectiveness of my chosen cleaning method

I let the area dry and was pleased with the improvement, so I added “Clean fireplace” to my to-do list for the upcoming long holiday weekend. It wasn’t a complicated process, but it was time consuming because each time I scrubbed a stone I had to wipe down the wall next to it where the dirty water would splatter.

So last Saturday I gathered my supplies and proceeded to scrub, rinse and wipe my way across the fireplace, from top to bottom.  Although I started with fresh clean water and vinegar this is what I ended up with once the entire area was done. I was pretty amazed.

I’m sure there’s a bit of regular dust mixed in that concoction since the stones have texture which provides particles a place to accumulate. I’m thinking this might need to be a new part of my annual deep clean, but that beautiful wall of stone is sooo worth it. Check out the difference in the before and after.

All that pretty clean stone will be the perfect backdrop to my fall décor! Watch for a post about that soon.