Fireplacetastic!

Our reclaimed fireplace has finally been fitted and it's wonderful. I am thrilled with how it has turned out (and the money we have saved by going reclaimed). It is fab to have a working fire again because it has recently turned really cold in York, we even had a bit of snow yesterday. Brrr.

Anyway Ta Dah!

We used slate polish on the hearth and grate polish on the cast iron section so the whole thing is really sparkling. It is actually hard to believe that this is the same fireplace as the transformation is so complete. Here is a quick reminder of its original appearance. Haha!

 

 

I can't leave you with that hideous image, so here's one more photo of the finished article. So thrilled.

 

 



 



The Best Laid Plans

We've had a bit of an incident. First I'll show you the good part. We finally got the new tiles into the cast iron insert. It was a bit of a challenge as the screws holding the old tiles in had corroded quite badly.

The new tiles look fab don't they?

BUT not 10 seconds after I'd taken this picture, a tile broke whilst we were trying to secure them.

Poop! Boo Hoo! The only solution was to hot-foot it over to Harrogate and buy two more of the cream spacer tiles from Fired Earth. It was a huffy drive over let me tell you!

The final fireplace won't be quite as fab, but needs must. I'll update again when it's finally fitted!

Fireplace Tiles

Back to the eBay fireplace that I originally posted about here and here. Further progress has been made. I really love the cast iron insert (it actually turns out to be a Stovax Art Nouveaux) but the existing tiles just HAVE to go! To that end I've been on the look out for some reclaimed tiles and I finally saw the perfect ones. I'm not sure if they're repro or actually old but either way I'm happy as they are simply stunning, such a beautiful colour and pattern.

Lovely aren't they?

As there were only 6 reclaimed tiles, I needed 4 others to tie-in (10 total - 5 each side). Actually a little tip here - the fact that there were only 6 tiles made them far cheaper than if there had been the full complement of 10 tiles, so if you are happy to find something that works as a spacer tile you can save quite a bit of cash.

Fired Earth sell some beautiful tiles and I managed to get some cream 6" x 6" crackled cream tiles that look wonderful (called Iron Bridge Verdigris) and are a perfect match colour wise to the cream portion of the reclaimed tile. They also have the crackle glaze that gives them an antique look.

It's all starting to come together! I just can't wait to have a working fireplace once more.