Fireplace Update: Centering and Adjusting

December 29, 2025

We were fortunate to have Coast to Coast Masonry come back to our house, after the holidays… and to do a bit of adjustment work for us.

Previously, in addition to getting our fireplace working and up to snuff again… they were able to carefully remove two embedded terra cotta tiles that we had accidentally discovered, a few years back.

As Liz was reassessing things, she discovered that the opening on the left needed to be adjusted (the terra cotta tile didn’t quite fit).

But more than that, she discovered that if we shifted the opening for the right tile ever so slightly… we could get the fireplace, the hearth, and the face of the fireplace to line up.

The way the fireplace was set up, along with how we set the hearth… things were all just a bit off-kilter. It wasn’t obvious, but Liz noticed it and it was something that really bothered her.

So we lucked out, with her figuring a way we could line up everything if we just got the terra cotta tiles slightly adjusted.

I have to say again – working with Coast to Coast Masonry was really great. In particular, our conversations with Art – who was a wealth of knowledge, and always gave us more to consider and think about.

If you’re in Chicago and need masonry work done, I highly recommend Coast to Coast Masonry (I know I have photos on the blog, but you can also read My Review of Coast to Coast Masonry for more details).