Taking Back Toad Hall

If you’ve driven by the house in the last few years you have probably noticed the lovely graffiti on the North face of the tower. Ever since we seriously began discussing purchasing this property I have wanted to get this cleaned up. So why haven’t we?

There are two main reasons. The first problem is that most of the cleaners that we would use for this need to be rinsed off, so we had to wait until we had the water on in the Bungalow. Now we just need to take a long enough hose over there and this problem is solved.

The second problem is what do we use? On the surface this seems easy enough. Go to the hardware store and purchase some paint remover. But it’s not that simple. With a historic home it never is! Since the brick is so old, the composition is very different from new brick. It’s much softer and will absorb most chemicals and then break apart. So, I checked the preservation briefs to see if they had any recommendation, but other than what not to use, I didn’t find an answer. This is something that I have asked a number of “experts” over the last couple of years and no one knew what to do. A couple of weeks ago I posed this same question to our new contractor. Greg gave me the number of a company in Fishers and they have an expert on staff that told us exactly which product is the one to use. :D

Now we just have to order the product and pay the $85.00 it costs for one can of it. Fortunately the can will cover 100 square feet so we will have plenty left over. I’ll take many pictures when the removal day comes so that you all can rejoice with me!

-Amanda