In Focus

I love the rain. It’s just so peaceful. My bedroom wall on the other hand is falling apart at the seams because of the moisture.

In the corner of my bedroom is an old chimney column buried underneath the plaster and lath. We have no fireplace, it’s just a remnant of times past.

Not long before the few straight days of constant rain, I noticed the wall around the chimney was cracking and bulging. So, curiosity got the best of me and I poked a bulge with a screwdriver. A chunk of plaster fell off. That was an unexpected surprise.

The first day of the rain I just happened to glance into that corner to see streaks of white running down the pink wall. I touched the broken area and it was completely saturated. Obviously, it was not a good sign. I grabbed my trusty screwdriver and began poking around some more. Chunks of saturated plaster fell off the wall with ease. Well, the damage was done, why stop there? I kept poking around the column and the entire perimeter was soaking wet, cracking, and falling apart.

I sent some pictures to a handyman friend of mine asking for assistance.

After looking at the damage, it was determined the lining inside the chimney was cracked. We decided the best option was to take the chimney out and seal it. It serves no purpose as we don’t have a fireplace and other separate vents go out the side of the house. So, the chimney is basically just decoration at this point.

Why try fixing something that is not useful? No chimney—no more problems.

While it’s not going to be cheap to remove the chimney, it will fix the problem and the damage long-term.

I was hoping to paint my bedroom this weekend, but that’s not going to happen now.

It never seems to fail...when I have a few extra bucks some sort of expense always pops up!