Another fireplace thread

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You wait all year for one and get two within a week

We'd like to reinstate proper Victorian/Edwardian fireplaces in the two bedrooms in our house, where the previous owners blocked them up. We're not going to use them, they're purely for aesthetics. We found two lovely matching bedroom surrounds on ebay, I think they'll look really nice. We're almost at the end of a 1.5yr long renovation. So far, given the size of the project we've not done much ourselves, and this is our first place so we're total newbies too. So we're wondering if this is something we're going to be capable of ourselves, with little/no knowledge and even fewer tools at our disposal.

This is what we're dealing with. The carpet is getting replaced so we're not worried about that. And we sweet-talked the builder into cutting the skirting for us so we could rip it off, although now I think we need to replace the whole run and scribe the shape of the surrounds in to make it neater... The real question is, what the heck do we do now?

There's a concrete hearth underneath each as you can see, and since we're not going to use them we don't mind the flat wall behind (i.e. we're not knocking into the chimney breast or anything). We should be able to source some slate to sit them on, so how the heck do we affix that? Do we need to replaster the hole our skirting has left? ... Or should we just get on our local FB groups for a local handyman/builder to do it for us since we're totally useless

Any advice?

The other room;

 

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I can't answer any of your questions but seeing as you're not using them as actual fires, I'd put in some red/orange/yellow LEDs with glass coal/ember blocks in to give the effect of being in use. Run some power for the psu for the LEDs or get some battery powered type ones. Might even give you some placebo heat .

lol I think that might look a little tacky when it lights up the flat wall "inside" the fireplace!

What about a cast iron grate cover ?
Like these -

Oh thanks for the link.We've been looking for a fret to fill the gap underneath our fireplace in the lounge. Useful to know what they're called actually We could get a fender (also useful to know what they're called) and skip the cost of slate but it might look too fussy for a small bedroom. And we only have slate downstairs in the lounge. Have you ordered anything from that site?

My daughters' fireplaces are carpeted right up so cant be used. Could do that as makes little sense losing space to a hearth for something decorative.

What's your plans for that plastic vent?

Carpeting up to them is the easy way but looks a little wrong. Vents will be changed, not entirely sure yet. The room will be dark green so we may get away with just painting it to hide it The one in the big bedroom is about 10ft high up the chimney so thinking of doing the same there. Or getting a nice brass "feature" one but it seems a little pointless.

We're off next week and there is a place our builder has recommended for slate offcuts. I do fear we're going to need to get a builder/handyman to just get it done for us though.

 

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Ok guys c'mon I need to decide if I'm going to buy stuff and attempt this or not

All carpets are up and gone now, here's some pics of the situation;

We have a bunch of leftover black flat metro tiles (10x20cm) and my girlfriend likes the look of building a tile hearth ourselves like this but I'm sure it's one of these things that is a lot harder than it looks!

Could we literally glue down a tiling backer board, then tile on top? The issues I've seen are firstly; as you can see in the last pic the surround actually has bits sticking out on the bottom, so we'd have to put holes in the tiles to slot those into. Besides cutting tiles..which we don't equipment to do anyway. Then, the central 'grill' bit on the back side sticks out further than the rest of the surround. As in, if you just push it up against the flat wall as-is then the edges of the surround aren't flush as these bits hit the wall first. So I'm thinking I could chisel out some of the plaster for this to slot into?

Still unsure whether to give this a go... before my girlfriend buys £100s worth of stuff

 

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Are you thinking of just putting this on to the wall without opening up the fireplace?

Yep.Rear chimney leg was taken out for the loft/dormer anyway.

 

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Are you replacing the skirting board in the rooms?

Probably not. Our builder’s carpenter guy measured and removed enough for them to fit in. A bit of filler around the edges and I think they’ll be fine. No skirting “inside” the fireplace.

 

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I would paint the interior of the fireplace solid matt black including the vent. You might need to use a sheet of ply or MDF in behind the fireplace, and paint that.

Yeah we were debating painting the “hole” black. Not sure. Pics I’ve seen of ones installed like this tend just to have the wall colour visible behind and it doesn’t look weird. What’s the reason for the ply behind?

How does your fireplace attach to the wall? Does it have lugs to screw through, or only attachments for wire.

It has lugs either side which I presume are for big screws. You can see them in the first pic in my OP right beneath the mantle part.

 

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jesus that will look beyond stupid. please don't do it.

It’s pretty common in Victorian houses where the chimneys are blocked up but people have reinstated the surround as a feature? Particular in bedrooms… we’re not doing anything out of the ordinary here

 

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if i walked in to someone's house and saw a fire surround just stuck to the wall i'd be asking them what the hell was wrong with them

Would you really

I think your are right, I’ve done this myself, but I’ve normally seen it with the chimney breast being opened up - the fire and flue does not need to be reinstated so they work, but aesthetically it will look far better - but, it’s down to personal taste.

Don’t get me wrong I’d much rather do that but I fear we’ve missed the boat. Our lounge is fully decorated and finished - opening up the chimney above it is going to cause a ridiculous amount of dust and chaos. The lounge is blocked above it but not sure it’s worth the risk.

I think we’re both right, upon closer inspection a lot of the pictures we’ve used as reference do have the hole opened or the surround itself does go into the wall. The flat we used to rent was a converted Victorian house and the landlord had white wall and put the fireplace surround back in its place. Just flat against the wall like we are going to do. It looked fine and that was in the front room. In hindsight, obviously not as smart as it could have been all knocked out but hey.

 

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We're having fun knocking out the plaster/lining to make our surround fit flush. Yes, lots of arguments previously on here about what to do in the middle. We're not knocking it through. Girlfriend's idea was to stick very vintage mirror sticky stuff (looks like vintage glass) to add some depth and make it less obvious it's not knocked through.

Wondering why the heck there's holes in some of the breezeblocks though, and some are really crumbly? Reckon we can just stuck some expanding foam in there and forget about it? None of the holes go through, it's like they're hollow bricks or there's just another layer behind or something

Did that all with a bolster chisel and lump hammer this morning. I'm now dead.

 

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The holes will be for ventilation perhaps although rather poorly done as it doesn't directly connected with the flue

They don’t appear to go anywhere. They’re more like massive holes in the breeze blocks. I can stick my finger in and hit more breeze block, it’s not like it goes all the way up. Reckon expanding foam is forceful enough to break the blocks more?

 

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Why would you use expanding foam in there for breaking breeze blocks?

No it’s not my intention to break them more. I was just checking it’s not forceful enough to do so, since some areas around the holes are really crumbly.

 

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I was about to post in here with other questions but thought I should show an update pic for you. We finished our tiled hearth.. simple backer board cut down, leftover black metro tiles from the bathroom. Had lots of fun trying to cut out the holes for the fireplace to sit in (the "legs" have little lips that stick out on the bottom). Initially drilled but that got difficult because we don't have any tile nippers or file.. so cut lots of shapes around it instead. Fun. Not grouted yet. As you can see the decorator started yesterday and stripped 90% of the old paper off the walls and started filling and fixing. Made a nice mess of our tiles, lol.

And so to my question regarding our dining room fireplace. What would you do here? We had slate leftover from the guy doing the front garden so he kindly cut it to shape. We're just going to put an old log burner in it or something for display (not working). Or wine storage etc. We bought all the gear from Wickes to put down some self-levelling concrete but my other half is now thinking we can take that back, get the money back and not bother with the effort. Could we just put some sand down or something to sit the slate on? It needs to be raise a bit to match the flooring, otherwise we'll pull the edge of the flooring off with the weight on it's edge.

Current situation:

With the slate down to see what it looks like:

We'll be putting some beading around the edge of the wallpaper to finish it. And I think the decorator was going to sort out the chimney walls but I can't remember what he said he'd put on it. I guess that should be done before we put the slate down.

What would be the easiest thing to do with the base?

 

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Bed it on mortar?

We are total idiots here. Please do elaborate?

 

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You can get mix in the bucket mortar which'll be fine.

So this type of stuff I guess? https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Mix-in-the-Tub-Mortar-Mix---5kg/p/154060

Seems like a decent idea to me! How much will it compress when we put the slate on it? (IE how high above the floor level/edge should we go). I have no idea how much the slate weights, maybe 20kg?

 

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Bump. Off to Wickes in a bit for date night The area we want to mortar (shown above) is 60x90cm. Any idea how much mortar we should get?

The fact sheet says 1kg fills a void of 440cm3... But that would mean we'd need 14kg which seems wrong?

 

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Get 2 and return 1 imho.

Not ideal without a car