This is how the hearth in the dining room used to look before we started phase 2 of the renovations which is when we removed the hearth and wood stove. We commonly referred to it as,"The Toe Breaker" because it protruded out into the dining room so far it was impossible to walk around it without stubbing your toe! I can't even tell you how many toes I had broken on that stupid thing!!!! Of course the location of the wood stove was also impractical since it was in the dining room instead of the living room. We tried to make it work by installing a high efficiency wood stove and eventually I painted all the brick white which made a huge difference in lightening up the room. However hauling wood and getting up in the middle of the night to stoke the fire got old really fast!!!! After many hours of jack hammering thru 8 inches of concrete we were able to say goodbye to the ugly thing with crooked bricks and uneven mantle shelf....hooray!!!!!!!
What would we put in the spot now that we had all that extra space?
This beauty.... which holds a small part of my ironstone collection......
Another view........
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