In between renovating the fireplace I've also been sorting out some other little jobs, like digging trenches in the house to get the water supply to the correct place and digging more tenches to lay the soil pipes so I could install a temporary 'coffee station' with running water and a waste supply. I was getting a bit fed up with only having an outside tap and no sink. Because you are not allowed to use 90 degree bends on horizontal runs of waste pipe it is necessary to pass through a wall at a 45 degree angle. When the walls are over half-a-meter thick it needs a big hole. I guess the rule is to help prevent blockages in soil pipes buried under floors etc.

Anyway back to the fireplace. The photo above showing the original fireplace was taken just after I bought the house before sandblasting the beams. Not very attractive. After stripping back all the plaster and removing the breeze block and various in-fill I was left with a shell of the original fireplace. It's not very clear but in the photo there are two stone 'shoulders' about 1m50 off the floor. On these shoulders used to rest two oak supports for the mantelpiece. They protude into the room about 20cm and also extend back into the wall about 50cm. The weight of the wall on the rear of the supports and the lever effect would have supported the original mantelpiece.

I knew they used to be wooden, probably oak, supports because when I dug into the wall there where the remains of the old rotten timber.

From some spare oak I had left over from the windows and created two new supports and fashioned a traditional rounded end to the section that protrudes into the room. These were cemented into place and the stonework above reconstructed to lock the supports into place.

For the hearth of the fireplace I decided to dig down a little to lay a plastic membrane and cast a concrete base for the new stone hearth. It was a bit of a suprise and a real disappointment but under the floor I found two very large pieces of granite. Once pulled out it was obviously the original mantlepiece broken into two halves. A real shame. I can only guess the timber supports must have rotted away and the granite mantlepiece fell and broke.

Almost the last piece of the puzzle was to fit a new mantlepiece. I decided to use an oak beam 20cm by 20cm rather than granite. Partly cost and partly because it fitted in better with the beams above and the wooden supports.

The beam is shown resting on the new supports and just awaiting some infill above from the top of the mantelpiece to the ceiling.

Whilst all this has been going on Debbie has been slaving away raking out all the mud and clay between the stonework and cleaning up all the stones with a nylon brush. It's a bit of a time-consuming soul destroying job, but once it gets pointed up it should look fab.

BTW – The electric meter is being moved into the laundry room off the kitchen.

brittany renovation