More Fire
I cannot stress how lovely it’s been, to finally have a working fireplace in the house. We’ve been having a lot of fires in the evenings, whenever we can.
Posts Tagged "fireplace"
Mistakes Were Made
Then I looked over, and noticed by wife. Who said to me “Mistakes were made.”
And around then is when I noticed how hazy the air was in the basement. And how everything seemed to have a slight layer of dust. Which ended up not being dust, but ash.
First Fire on the Last Day of the Year
Our first fire! It’s New Year’s Eve, and better late than never. Glad we got this in, in 2025.
I do have to say – this has been a long, long time coming. With the cost of fixing and updating a fireplace, we’ve held off on this for years because our money was better spent elsewhere – on more critical, infrastructure type work for the house.
To have this done and working is… difficult to describe. It’s a nice, warm feeling, both literally and emotionally.
Liz the Mason
Liz was a whirlwind around the house, today. Of the many things she was working on, she applied some mortar between the fireplace and our newly installed hearth.
Fireplace Update: Centering and Adjusting
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.
Unexpected Hearth
Today, as she was out picking up some lunch… she came home to find a few missed calls and a B&B Formica truck waiting on our street. She had gotten a call from the workers, saying our hearth was ready and could they stop by today to install it?
Fireplace: Skim Coat
There was some discussion back and forth (between us, the masons, and our tile person) as to who should actually set the terra cotta squares. We landed on having the masons apply a skim coat of cement, and to keep the terra cotta squares free (so that the tile guy could set them, when the actual tile is put in).
Fireplace Work: Terra Cotta Tiles Removed
After removing the tile, Liz went about cleaning the mortar off – and in doing so, had a really amazing discovery. Two in fact!
Fireplace Work
We mentioned that we had a decent stash of older Common brick, much of which we accumulated while working on the house (and which Liz had meticulously cleaned). All that work paid off, as the workers were able to pick and choose from what we had available.
Fireplace Prep
Of late, I’ve relocated my office down to the dining room… so this means, I needed to move my desk. And we also needed to cordon off the dining room as much as possible (we’re anticipating a lot of dust/debris over the next week or so).
Hearthstone Shopping, Date Night in Logan Square
The day we were visiting, we learned that the lift was waiting for some repairs – so not a lot of work was possible, since none of the slabs could be moved. Lucky for us, one of the owners joined our walkthrough and helped us with some suggestions and answered a lot of our questions.
Dining Room, Fireplace Discovery
We’ve taken down so many walls, pulled up so many floors… there’s precious little left in this house that we haven’t touched or removed, in some way. And yet, somehow. Magically. This house still surprises us, even now.
Dining Room Fireplace, Tile Removal
Liz has taken on the challenging and stressful task of removing all the tile in our dining room fireplace. They’re all pretty loose, and need to get re-installed.