Plan B: Exposing the Brick!

by Kammy's Korner

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We were in the middle of a major renovation - tearing down walls, and taking off old paneling when we came upon the backside of the chimney. Just one more thing hidiing behind all those layers we hadn't anitcipated on!

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My Dad, who was helping, had the brilliant idea of pulling off more of the boards to expose all of the chimney and make it a main focal point in the room. He said it give us a downtown city bistro flavor! This is all coming from an old farm boy retired from John Deere, mind you! Who knew he had some interior designing savvy!

Here's the sight that at first made us go "Ohhhh crap, what are we going to do about this?!".... Dad cemented in the hole and then realizing there was much more brick to the right, came up with his awesome plan to cover up the hole he just cemented by repositioning the slat boards over it and exposing the brick to the right of it. Did you follow all that? :)

We started pulling off boards until we had a nice 30 inch wide opening to the brick. Sorry I don't have pictures of those steps. Dad framed it all in with boards we had on hand to finish it off.

I had an old rustic wood window that happened to fit inside the opening just perfect, so I hung it by little chains so it wasn't up against the brick. I LOVE the rustic pizzazz this adds to our newly remodeled sunroom!

And believe it or not, this little brick wall part of the project didn't cost us a dime! Visit my blog for lots more pictures!

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4 of 48 comments

Kathy Bitzan on Oct 28, 2015
Just goes to show never know will be found behind a wood wall. great find.

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Jean on Oct 29, 2015
Too bad the chimney wasn't able to be used! We moved into our 1870 farm house, pulled paneling off the kitchen wall and found a chimney. We hoped to have at least a wood stove in there but no joy! The thing had crumbled at the second floor and would have cost too much to repair. Still hope someday to add a fireplace (with chimney) back to this old place - it would bring back much of it's character. Some places just cry out for that wood-burning apparatus! What you ended up with looks good though. Keep that father-in-law!!

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- Kammy's Korner on Oct 29, 2015
  @Jean Oops, guess I should have said... We do actually use the fireplace that is on the other side of the wall in our family room (you can see that post here, I stenciled the granite - eek http://www.kammyskorner.com/2015/02/stenciled-granite-fireplace-cutting.html) but we were surprised when taking off the layers of wall on the other side to find one square area of exposed brick - since it wasn't showing anywhere else. :) Hope that makes sense. We're actually going to convert it to gas log since we ended up capping the chimneys (there are three fireplaces). I hope you get yours soon! Too bad about the crumbling - what a bummer. They are expensive to repair!!!
  
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- Jean on Oct 29, 2015
  @Kammy's Korner So happy you have your fireplaces and maybe I misread the data. But gas is such a nice clean solution! That's what I have for now - one of those gas burners within a pretty fireplace/mantelpiece. And in thinking it over for years now it seems the CLEANEST solution. Homey flame and heat without all the soot and mess.
  
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