We decided we wanted to put the insulation in the living room wall and closed up so I could decorate for Christmas.
With that in mind we proceeded to tear the fireplace apart. We removed the concrete mantle, all the brick that surrounded the fire place and the concrete hearth slab.
Fireplace before
Mantel removed
Brick and concrete hearth slab removed
Then we proceeded to make a brace so we could move the header for the fireplace up about 6 inches. So Dwayne cut the old header out, made a new one and put it in (took us a couple of try’s before we got it just right). He cut a couple of extra pieces to put on the bottom half to support the header. Nailed it all it and took the support off. Of course not everything fits perfect the first time. There were a couple of times of taking pieces of wood out and taking them back to the saw to make them a a little shorter and then refitting them, but considering this part of the project went very smoothly.
Brace put in place
Old header cut out
new header set in place
New header and supports in place
After that we put the insulation in the wall and put up the drywall. Because we were coming up on Christmas, Dwayne closed up the hole in the wall from the fireplace by making me a faux fireplace with a mantle and hearth so I could put up decorations.
Temporary Faux fireplace
The living room is now on hold for a while. We bought the new stone we needed and it is sitting in our staging pile waiting to be put on the fireplace. I think we talked about putting this project on hold now until we get the kitchen finished. You can see two new boxes in the upper wall. When this room is finished, those two boxes are going to be craftsman wall sconces. The fireplace will have a craftsman mantel and will be flanked by two built in bookcases with glass doors. It’s going to look really nice when it’s finished. =)