Pilgrim's Progress - My house renovation: Kitchen fireplace

You'll have to forgive if the next two posts are repetitive. I havn't posted for over a month, as every spare minute (which isn't many), has been taken up with either work or renovations!

The kitchen fireplace as you may remember turned into a much bigger task than I could have envisaged, however it was completely worth it. I never did find any witch marks, shoes or dead cats up there, but I did manage to get a cooker in there (well the boys did)!

By all accounts, moving the original lintel back in to place was a nightmare ...I was thrown out while they did this. Dean and Dave both were both walking like old men due to groin strain (hahaha) and the air was blue, but it was in and they both survived thankfully! The large stone lintel would now only be cosmetic as we had to use two concrete lintels behind to add reinforcement and structure to the new space. However, as Ive said previously, I think using original features as much as possible is important in old properties to maintain their character. I kept changing my mind about the brick pillars Dave built to put it on. I bought bricks I thought I liked, then decided I didn't, so ended up painted them. It actually looks great as it lightens up the fireplace and really shows off the stone. I also found out how amazing priming the brick properly before painting them is. As they are internal brick pillars I didn't have to worry about damp or any of the things I have to do with the old Forest stone (or st'n, as they say in the Varrrest) so it can breath. Meaning the paint went on like a dream.

The kitchen chimney unfortunately was blocked off many years ago. Clive found all sorts of rubble jammed down there when he did the roof. So whilst cosmetically it is beautiful, I would never have functioned (not without £1000's being spent). So we blocked it off, but left some breathing holes, so we didn't get dust falling down into the cooking. I cleaned the stones off and gave them a dose of breathable sealant (doesn't sound like it should work as it cancels each other out but it does)!

The gas pipe had to be moved and the electrics re sited, so that was a little costly, however it gave us the advantage of being able to put the cooker further back and gain some space.

Due to all of the building work, and despite being covered, when it came to moving the cooker back I unwrapped it and it was fetid! I'm not a clean freak, but after all that work, I was NOT putting a rancid cooker back in place. The only other time Ive properly cleaned a cooker was 12 years ago, when I was nesting, just before having my twins....it's a vile job and should only be tackled in extreme circumstances in my opinion. This was extreme! I was very kindly given the range cooker - a Smeg - something I could only dream of, by my friend Nicky, after the cooker I had turned out to be a death trap. So I'm looking after it very carefully!It took four hours of scrubbing to give it a deep clean, so it looked all lovely and sparkly ready for its new home.

I think you'll agree, it was absolutely worth every step of this nightmare!!!