Wondering how to create a chimney breast and add some period features and atmosphere to a soul-less living room?
We live in a 1970s house but I'm a Victorian girl at heart and love the period features of Victorian and Edwardian houses. Although we have an open fire in our living room, there's no chimney breast (it juts out into the garage!) and for the four years we have lived here, I've been longing to rip out the 70s stone work.
Well, we started to rip it out at about half past ten on Valentine's night – yes, I know – really romantic! I had eventually found a fireplace I had fallen in love with at a architectural yard, apparently it came out of the Baltic Exchange in London and is probably a couple of hundred years old. I'm not sure how it ended up in Co. Kilkenny in rural Ireland.
The slate hearth had to be installed first, then we had to create a wooden frame to attach the fireplace to, and it also created the depth for the 'chimney breast'.
Once the paneling and the fire surround were put in place, measurements were taken for the slate to go around the actual open fire, once it was installed, we could get fix the oak fireplace into place. The oak was extremely heavy and I lost count of the number of times we moved it around the room! The oak was also extremely thirsty and I used two pots of wax and loads of elbow grease on restore it to some of its former glory. We put 2 narrow sheets of oak along each end and waxed them with a darker wax to bring up the colour. But I'm so happy with the result.
In my 1970s house I now have a period fireplace, with authentic oak paneling and lovely detail on the fire surround.
There's still a lot to do: find a lovely old painting at an auction, put in a deep oak skirting (you can see where deep skirting once originally went along the base of the paneling), new carpet, wallpaper and our Chesterfield sofa is crying out for new upholstery fabric but that's work for another day. I have my Victorian fireplace and I'm happy for the time being!
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Wow…what a transformation!
That really made a difference! I love how you can add period details and really change the look of a home! Great job!