The Unexpected Fireplace...

Last December we had a chap in to help David fit insulation and plasterboard to the worst of the walls, and then to skim over with plaster. The job ran over by a day or two, and we were due to travel South for a few days, so it was agreed that Mark would have the keys and complete the job while we were away. The night before we were due to leave, I was overcome with panic in that we didn't know what lurked behind the blocked up fireplace in the sitting room, which would be plaster-boarded over and plastered by the time we got back...

My total paranoia about the old fireplace being full of rubble, soot and dampness got the better of me, and we knocked a small hole through into the cavity which revealed...rubble and damp soot. We cleared it out as best we could, and sure enough it was duly boarded over and plastered while we were away.

A year has passed. When the wind is in a certain direction you can hear the soot fall down the chimney. And we cleared out such a lot of rubble and soot from a very small hole...

We are fast approaching the last leg of our great renovation project, and the long-awaited doing up of the sitting room which has had bare walls and a bare concrete floor since we moved in.

The paranoia returns...

If there is still rubbish in the cavity it will encourage damp and once we have decorated it will be there FOREVER...

So David put on his mask and rigger gloves and plugged in his hammer drill and angle-grinder and cut a hole. A great big hole. a hole the size of a fireplace. And we cleared out all the rubble and all the soot and made certain that the marks on the floor in front of the chimney breast were oil marks and not creeping damp. And we looked into the hole and saw that it was good...

 
Of course, we were going to cut a piece of plasterboard and fit it and skim it, but this hole is calling to us.
"I may not be functional as a fireplace since I don't have a chimney, " it purrs, seductively. "You need a focal point," it insists.
.
And we keep on looking at the hole, and discussing the hole, and it begins to look more and more like a hole with Potential.

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