Oh, the Value of Good Chemistry!

So, last Spring our HoA sent us a little nasty-gram about our front door trim needing to be repainted and the ugly caulk smears along the bricks needing to be removed.  Several members of the family were involved in this project (I blogged about it before) so it was a group effort.  In the process of stripping the old paint from the door trim, globs of white yucky mess adhered themselves (see how they did that?  it's like when a vase falls off the table and breaks itself) to the cement stoop.  U-gly.  With a capital U.

Work-in-Process "Before" pics (our old front door!):

yes, this is 3-dimensional pile of mess
completely hardened
drips and everything, ugh.

not as 3-D, but still very sloppy

about 1/4 of the way through the stripping
and sanding process

The painting required to satisfy the HoA took place and was finished last summer (yes, nearly a year ago) and then in December we bought a new front door and storm door.  Then, the weather turned cold and snowy so nothing happened ... for a long time.

Last week I decided I had looked upon this ugly mess too many times and since the weather is better, but not too hot for outdoor projects, the time was perfect for fixing this situation.  I consulted the internet for some DIY advice on how to remove messes like this from cement.  I made a visit to our local hardware store where I could talk with knowledgable people about such things and left there with a bottle of muriatic acid, some heavy duty gloves and a steel brush.  Sadly, this clean up process required lots of elbow grease even though strong chemicals were involved.
But scrub I did .... for 90 minutes (yes, I wore eye protection, old clothes and had fresh water close at hand).

And now our front stoop looks like this:

The white globby, icky-ick is gone!  My back was killing me immediately afterward, but Ibuprofen fixed that right up.  Now I can officially say that this project is complete.

And, please, no more nasty-grams from the HoA for a long time (I hope!).