This is Fireplace Face. When Mister and I moved in, Fireplace Face was already residing in the New Pad. She jutted out into the room – about 4.5 feet – and she dominated the entire wall.
We had a lot of fun with Fireplace Face. During drunken DJ nights, I liked to perch up top. During visits with friends, we’d take photos of folks sitting inside Fireplace Face. But never – not once – did we have an actual fire there. It would have required crawling inside the firebox to start the flames. I didn’t want to do it. I’m guessing Mister didn’t, either. So Fireplace Face sat unused, imposing and cold.
At some point, we thought about getting rid of Fireplace Face. We did the math and realized we’d gain a lot of floor space if the beast was gone, and maybe we could turn it into something a little less obvious.
So during the 2013 Thanksgiving holiday, Mister and his Daddy rented a demolition hammer and went to town. (I was in charge of hauling the debris out of the house.)
It was a monster job, y’all. It took a couple of days. It took a lot of energy. It took a lot of patience. And do you know how loud demolition hammers are? That job took a lot of ear plugs, too.
And when they were done, Fireplace Face was gone. There was room in the room! And there was ugly, too. I mean, that big, gaping hole in the wall was unattractive. The demo had exposed original stone work and wood cabinetry, but it had also damaged both. Not only that, but there had been alterations made to the original wall after repair from the Northridge Earthquake. That temblor had toppled the chimney and then some. (The previous care-takers of the New Pad had filled us in on all the deets.) So as much as I would have loved to have kept the original fireplace wall, it simply wasn’t possible. But Mister and I had plans. Or rather, I had an idea of what I wanted in the space and Mister went along. We intended to get the mutha back up and running pretty quickly.
But you know how plans go. You’re coasting. You’re dreaming. You’re ready to commit time and/or money. And then you don’t. For whatever reason(s). That’s what went down with us. Some of what held us back was very real. Other factors – not so much. And you know what happened? We got used to living with a hole in our wall. We turned four blind eyes to it. It’s a shame and I’m not proud to admit it, but it’s the truth. So there you go.
Cut to a shiny new year, 2015. I don’t know what happened, but we hit our limit. So I culled photos and ideas, cobbled them together and Mister drew explicit and precise plans for what we wanted. I knew I could do finish work, as in painting and staining, and I also knew I absolutely should not attempt work that involved safety. I mean, what if I failed to fill in a small hole that trapped hot ash and burned the house down? Not cool. So after a couple of professional consultations, we chose to hire Ralph. And that guy was alright.
The first thing Ralph did was advise us on further demo. (We explained to Ralph that we wanted to save money anywhere we could, and doing the demo ourselves helped on that front.) He said we needed to take out even more stone, in order to get a relatively flat space for starting the project. Okay. So Mister and I went and rented a small demo hammer for a couple of hours. Mister handled the machinery and I hauled the refuse out of the house. This time around, we had much less waste.
Once we’d gotten the wall ready (according to Ralph’s specifications), the job began in earnest. Ralph worked alone, which meant the process took longer than any of us had expected. But he also worked as an artisan, which is all-too-rare these days. He leveled each and every brick. He was always measuring and getting my input. Many times I saw him working out math and contemplating how best to proceed. In short – Ralph did this job the right way. He took pride in his work, even though the design was ours. He cleaned up every afternoon, so Mister and I had space to live. That was greatly appreciated, y’all, as Fireplace Face was in our Rumpus Room, and that’s where the TV lives. And friends, I loves me some TV, um-kay?
Anyhoo, as Ralph worked away on Fireplace Face, I painted the Rumpus Room. I’ve shared how that job just about took me out. The painting wasn’t too rough, but the taping! Dear Lord – the taping! And then one evening, the only thing left for Ralph to do was to mount the mantel. It was at that point that Mister suggested we put a message in a bottle and have it sealed beneath the mantel. I understood his thinking. The entire time the wall was being demo-ed, I kept looking for something. Anything that might tell me a bit about someone who came before. A previous owner. A worker. Sadly, all I found was a stamp from Mexico. I am unable to read a date.
So Mister and I did indeed compose a note. We placed it in a bottle and it now resides in the wall.
By the time Ralph finished his part of the job, I was able to paint the bricks and the bookshelves. Once those tasks had been handled, I moved on to staining and varnishing the mantel. After a few days (some steps take time – curing, you know), Fireplace Face was no more. Instead, we ended up with something on the traditional side. Something that might have been here all along, dating from the period the house was constructed.
Mister and I have now built a fire in the new fireplace. We’ve put goodies on the shelves, we’ve hung art and are now in the process of accepting the new wall. It still strikes me as new, as I’ve not yet grown accustomed to its presence. Hey – we lived with a hole for a long time, so it’s okay if this takes a while to sink in.
I’m proud of us for choosing to do something good for ourselves. I’m proud of us for doing as much of the work as we could, and for knowing when we needed outside help. The Rumpus Room is really getting there! And the new fireplace wall is a huge part of that. It’s functional. It’s non-intrusive. And it’s beautiful. I love it and look forward to the day when it’s just a wall and not this new-fangled thing we did. We’ll get there. If we can accept a hole, we can accept beauty.