Interiors: the Chimney Rebuild and Woodburner Installation.

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Taking the back route home today I got caught in a mist that rolled in over the hills and came with a wind that knocked all the rust tinged leaves off the trees and showering down in front of the van. When home, I opened up the front door, unclipped Monty’s collar and when I looked up a golden hue was softly drenching my living room. In that moment, a feeling of contentedness washed over me - this living room has been a trip but it’s all been so worth it.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram will know about my chimney debacle - one of the things I knew I wanted in a house I bought was a woodburner and this house already had one in. But when it came to getting it checked and swept before lighting it I learned, in the most dramatic way, that it was a hazard and needed ripping out, quick time. The chap who originally came to sweep it as good as slowly backed out of the house shaking his head and saying he’d never seen anything like it. He said the house was at risk of falling down and I needed to start thinking about who I was going to sue. It turned out it was DIY job without proper certification and the chimney was actually made out of plasterboard because they had smashed down the brick chimney. Which is the part that put the question mark over the integrity of the house.

It turned out it wasn't all that bad - steel beams run across my house holding the upstairs firmly in place. But it didn't change that the chimney needed to come out and be built properly.

Some Before Images.

The planning

I started by getting a quote on removal of the current set up and building of a new one. I’d decided to leave the removal of the whole set up to professionals - they have the dust extraction tools and have the expertise and knowledge, sometimes it’s just not worth trying to save money over that. I wasn't sure what was possible given brickwork had been removed. After getting the first quote in I organised a second from Irony Fireside - the quotes came in a similar figure but Irony Fireside had really listened to what I might want, had some creative ideas and really involved me which I really liked. We bounced around a few ideas - I got on Pinterest (of course) and sent some images over and after a few mulling it over phonecalls we settled on a design that I felt maximised light coming in and opened up the room.

The removal and build.

A lot of this was just taken care of by Irony Fireside - the team did an incredible job getting the work done and the only things I needed to do around this time was prep the rest of the room, organise a plasterer and make decisions on the finer details as the process moved along.

For those reading that want to know specifics of the build - the set up before had a twin wall chimney system so we moved forward with that and the chimney pot had to be changed to a required one.

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finishing off the set up.

After the plastering had been done and I was all painted I wanted to make some final touches before the wood burner was installed.

Firstly, I tackled how I was going to introduce in the TV after getting used to this lovely clean space! I would love to be TV free and I don’t watch it often but when I do it’s because I need the escapism, want to learn more about something in a documentary or because my Mum wants to watch Repair Shop. So it’s here to stay and I set about making it the most unobtrusive as possible. I had a TV mount from my old flat and dusted that off, mounting the TV to the left of the chimney. I then added some low shelves to create a lovely airy feeling - the shelves are just made from pine which I stained with walnut stain. The area below the shelves serves as a wood store as it;s not safe to store wood around a wood burner.

I then found some lovely ceramic lights to wire into the existing wall light connections which I painted the same colour as the walls.

Finally, we chose the hearth - I decided to go for a lighter colour but to be honest I’m regretting that now as I seem to be always wiping black marks off it.

I’ll go into further details about the living room as a whole including paint colour but I should mention that I adore my Spark and Bell chandelier - where there are many black accents in the room, the chandelier brings an elegance with it’s beautiful brass and structural design.

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Choosing the woodburner.

I’m going to go into a lot more detail on this as will write a dedicated blog post but I did a lot of research on woodburners as it mattered to me the impact my using one would have on the environment. There has been a lot of bad press about woodburners and their effect on the environment but I had some factors to weigh up - one being now that I have an open plan space I would be heating a bigger space with my gas central heating.

As ever, I went down a rabbit hole and when I found Charnwood I learned that modern day stoves can be up to 90% cleaner burning than older stoves and open fires. In fact the website is a hive of information and I found this post very interesting. So, having read about their commitment to the latest research and taking the environment very seriously I was pretty hellbent my stove would need to be a Charnwood.

I opted for the C-Four as wanted something compact and wanted to make sure the new chimney set up wasn’t overbearing in the room and this small unit meant we could keep things as narrow as possible not eating into my room.

This little beauty kicks out a whole lot of heat and I love how classic it looks. It’s fuss free and works like a dream - the only time I’ve ever had any smell come from it is when I inadvertently burned some damp wood. But another blog post all about how to store, burn and choose wood soon!

I’m delighted with this set up and will be doing a wider living room blog post soon - there are still a few things I need to get finished before that but the room is 90% there now - in fact I’m sitting on my sofa writing this very blog post infront of this set up!