It could have been worse...

About 7 weeks ago I became aware of a terrible smell in my office, which back on to the chimney. Basically it started to small horribly of creosote and I couldn't work in there (for 2 days as it ended up). So we let the fire go out (not fun when it's winter and less than 10 degrees during the day and in the 0 territory at night) and then got a chimney sweep out to do the chimney, thinking maybe it was blocked / dirty.

Only to find that the sweep doesn't actually sweep chimneys! "You'll have to do it yourself" he says. WTF?! Talk about false advertising - even after I clearly explained the situation and what I wanted on the phone. My favourite bit was when he said that he couldn't clean a real chimney because it was square and the brushes were round. Come on - has anyone actually ever fallen for that line?

Anyway, I've just about let it go, as you can see :-)

Next step was to get up on the roof to see if we could see anything obvious down the chimney - but we couldn't. So it was time for more drastic measures - and Jerry and friend pulled the fireplace out of the wall. This is what we found.

It seems the fireplace hadn't been properly set in the space, and with no flue the ash, debris and rain has been falling behind for 20+ years and had completely rusted the outer skin of the fireplace. We suspect some of this material caught fire and that caused the smell and us finding the problem. Phew! It really could have been much worse.

So the downside is that there's no fire. The very bright side is that I now had the excuse to do what I've always wanted to do - take the fireplace out, remove the wall and replace it with a freestanding stove with a cooktop! Yipeeeee  (although obviously very bad for the bank account!).

Lily tried hard to make the best of it in the few weeks before all this happened "think warm thoughts, think warm thoughts, there IS a fire"

Fortunately wall and chimney removal went well thanks to lots of hard work from Jerry and Dave. Although it was very, VERY dusty.

The roof has been patched, and the gaps filled in with new pine boards, that rather stand out, will should weather down and blend in over the next year or so.

Now to decide on a hearth covering. We've pretty much settled on the Lopi Endeavour as the new fireplace, although it won't be installed and ready to use until next winter. We're hoping for sales in the next few months to take a bit off the price tag!

Even better, Jerry managed to sell the old fireplace on ebay, which just about paid for the skip hire for the bricks.

Jerry the handyman

Jerry the handyman was hard at work this weekend (well, for an hour or so anyway!!) doing a few odd jobs. Firstly he converted the broom cupboard into more useful shelving space for the preserves and dried goods. The big space at the bottom fits the flour bin and the pressure canner. Then he added a couple of wall brackets so I can hang the clothes airers that were in the cupboard up on the wall out of the way.


What a handy Jerry he is!!!

New floor pt 1

After many delays, it is finally time to say bye-bye to the threadbare carpet and get some new flooring in most of the house. Unfortunately that means:

• packing up everything on shelves, in sideboards etc and moving it to one of the 3 bedrooms that are not being re-floored

• dismantling and moving all the shelves / furniture etc

• ripping up all the old carpet and underlay

So it's been a fun weekend of packing and moving!

It has also been a very dusty weekend. I was horrified to see the amount of dust coming from in the carpet, on the underlay, and even under the underlay! The haze in the photo on the left is the flash illuminating the dust in the air, and the brown on the floor in the right photo is dust - the slab is the gray streak you can see in the dust. Thank goodness the vacuum has an excellent dust filter!


I hope it's all worth it!!!!!!!!