What would this fireplace have looked like?

[SarahFair]

I've debated stripping it, don't tell the SO that though. He can get upset with all my ideas

Just a little test area to start

[1918ColonialRevival]

The best looking mantels would be in the "public" areas of the house (dining room, entry hall, living room, etc). With your additional information, I'm inclined to think it was re-done at some point, probably no later than the 1930s. If I had to guess, something probably happened to the original. Have you found any evidence of anything catastrophic happening in that room such as a fire or serious water leak?

[phil]

mine is like that (1924 craftsman bungalow) .Like yours I think only the (now white) white brick showed and not the chimney. I think mine also basically just had a plank on top and a simple molding to hide the bottom edge. Mine is covered with super ugly tile and also the hearth in front of it. I think someone painted yours and perhaps did the black tile. The fire screen may have just been a free standing one. I don't know what would have been where the black tile is , maybe that's ok?

I'd be tempted to open the windows, seal the doorways and heat vents, put a fan in the window so you aren't surrounded by smoke. get a bucket of water or fire extinguisher handy. use chemical respirator and try a blowtorch and see if you can just burn it off, if that works then maybe you don't have to resort to stripper which may run all over and impregnate the brickwork so it's even harder to remove. You couldn't do that on wood but the brick can take the blowtorch I would think. after that try a wire brush to get the soot off. use some metal plate to protect the walls. the wood plank should be removable and you'd want to remove it to strip that, or just find another old wood plank. you might even be able to just flip it over.

mine has some MDF junk on top and I found another from a similar house and it's just the same thing , basically a 2x10 with a little molding. It probably never was very fancy. that's my impression anyway.

I wont' tell if you don't and please don't burn down the house

[SarahFair]

The ceiling has been lowered to where the picture rail would have been. It's about 11ft now vs the 12 in the dining and entry

[SarahFair]

I stripped a little piece of the living room mantel and it looks like oak to me

[Texas_Ranger]

Burning paint off brick or plaster over masonry is a ridiculously hard task because you need to heat up the whole surface to get the paint off. Believe me, I've tried it and got a whole water closet (90x120 cm, painted roughly 120 cm up the wall) stripped over several days. And that only went so "fast" because more than half of the plaster fell down anyway.

I'd use a caustic stripper, either something like PeelAway or homebrew (lime putty and linseed oil soap 1:1). Linseed oil soap is a surprisingly potent paint stripper. I had a metal cup that we bought with the house and that had a dozen layers of different modern paint types (oil, acrylic, rust-inhibiting primer and whatnot) inside. I then filled it with a mix of oil soap and water for rinsing brushes and left that overnight. The next day there was no more paint below the water line, neatly stripped to bare metal without as much as a wave of the hand!

[SarahFair]

What about boiled linseed oil?

[Texas_Ranger]

I doubt boiled linseed oil would do anything except form a layer on top of your paint. It's the soap that does the trick.

[phil]

linseed oil soap? is this a product you are buying or is it a creation from a recipe? interesting !

older blowtorches get worn out and dont' get as hot, a newer tip will sometimes help or if available one could try a plumbers torch that runs on acetylene or a oxy acetylene welding torch and then there are a variety of tips and a lot more control over the temperature of the flame. of course you need some safety basics to use a welding torch but I just thought if one is available that could be an option. I often use mine for a variety of reasons outside welding such as burning paint off or loosening rusted bolts, bending stuff, cutting metal, etc. I have a plumbers torch that just uses acetylene it will get hotter than propane but it's not for welding. it's great for brazing.

with propane I had issues when soldering and couldn't get stuff hot enough to braze, it was even taking time to solder stuff. I have a bunch of old propane torch tips but they don't' work optimally forever so I finally broke down and bought a new one , this newer one gets a lot hotter and lights itself so I don't need to worry about loosing the striker.
One could try a nap gas bottle instead of propane and that may make a little difference . you can get different tips as well. Probably not in home depot but if you try a welding supply shop they will probably help you suit a torch and tip to the kind of flame you need without it being overkill.

most of us have a propane torch but there is a big variety outside the typical one in a the plumbing isle. If you find you are waiting and waiting more than a minute for something to get hot enough for your particular project you might need a different tip or different type of gas there is a different tool for each job you could think of.

[Lily left the valley]

I have to admit, when I first saw the blowtorch suggestion, an image popped into my mind...

...a new reality TV show called something like "Extreme Old Resto's", and the promo would be shot like those deep sea fishing and ice trucker shows where everyone looks like they're about to die or lose a limb. There's probably a shot of someone's kids with football helmets on pointing and screaming or something equally silly. Another will show some disastrous mistake that happened despite precautions, with the crowd of workers standing around mulling over what to do and how they can hide it from whomever it needs hiding from until it's fixed. There will be an obligatory moment where the wizened elder from the crowd is schooling the youngest (who may have been responsible for said mistake), followed by the youngest saying they sure did learn something, but it was SOOOO worth it because now they'll get to use a *insert manly sounding tool here*.

Throughout the trailer, there's small print running along the bottom of the screen warning folks that these methods are dangerous, are not recommended procedures for inexperienced renovators, and said show takes no responsibility if you try them and hurt yourself.

By trailers' end, though, whatever is getting restored looks fantastic and everyone's sitting around drinking and laughing while retelling their harrowing tales of the restoration. At least one person in the room will have on worn overalls maybe another in coveralls.