Medieval Fireplaces - almost done :-) Many Thanks.

[surreysteve]

Happy New Year All

Over the past year of so I have posted here and received great help and advice as I have slowly revealed and restored two medieval fireplaces. It has been a very long slow and cautious road but the two fireplaces are now fully revealed and back to their former glory, dating back to 1550.

I have attached 3 pics - two of the (nearly finished) restored fireplaces and one showing where we started with both of them being covered with sand/cement and brick skins. Beams also covered with filler and gloss paint (sacrilege!)

All that remains is to carefully clean some of the brick facings which are still a bit cloudy and messy for my liking.

Many thanks for all the great help and advice without which it would not have been possible. There are some great people on this forum!

Cheers

Steve T (Headley, Hampshire)

 

[keatsie]

They look fantastic, how did you get the beams back to natural color same for the brick work and fire surronfs, how did you get them back to a natural state?

We are just on the process of doing the same, what do you thinkn about the wood burners, how do you rate them are they as good as you had hoped?

Cheers
J

 

[Zebra]

Looking very good there Surreysteve. I wasn't sure about the wrought iron arch, but it all looks stable and secure, and looks so much better than before!

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Briliiant SurreySteve--your hard work seems to have brought the rooms back to life--
Happy New year x

 

[mims&pip]

Gosh, they look so much better - you must be very pleased

 

[MatthewC]

Well done, they look SO good! I think the lighting inside the fireplaces is a real improvement over the TV etc! How could the previous people do that sort of thing? They were probably only one step away from removing them entirely!

Matthew

 

[Zebra]

There are some great people on this forum!

Ahem! And some helpful animals too! :wink:

 

[surreysteve]

Thanks for the compliments - much appreciated and couldn''t have been done without all the help and advice we received here.

As regards restoring the beams and brickwork it was a slow and messy process but we refused to use any sort of blasting to preserve the face of the bricks and the beams.

A company in East Anglia (Paint Strippers?) were wonderful and supplied all the chemicals used, which were a 24hr caustic paste (used with cling film) and a follow up stripper which was very nasty indeed. The process took around 3 months of brushing, washing etc etc to do the whole house. The slowest part was removing 1000's of bit of filler for which it seems there is no chemical to help. Just hard work and long hours (especially in the areas with wood worm). The sand/cement was chipped off slowly from the bricks and some brick facing was lost although not too much. This was pretty unavoidable considering the soft 500yo bricks. We are very happy with the end result!

The house had been innocently "vandalised" in the 1960's before conservation was in vogue. If I could invent a time machine I'd go back and tell them to put down the filler, gloss paint, plasterboard and sand/cement!

The wood burners are excellent (an Esse 100 & 200) - both work really well. There are lot's of good & bad makes and a few good sites which do wood burner reviews - when we purchased the Chinese imports were pretty low quality (Things may have improved). Top tip : Do homework

Cheers

Steve

 

[Me!]

Yes, very nice work and an excellent end result.
Your lighting looks extremely effective, and as I need to add some lights to one of my fireplaces, can you add some more detail of the type, location and number of light fittings you used please?

 

[surreysteve]

Both fireplaces have 2 spotlights (one either side, on back of front face, pointing inwards) with GU10 6W LED bulbs (warm)

I hope this helps?

Cheers

Steve

 

[88v8]

Few people would have had the vision and persistence to do that. Outstanding.

Ivor

 

[angrybird]

What a stunning transformation! Your house is so lucky to have such a sympathetic custodian
A very prosperous new year to you
Jacqueline x

 

[Flyfisher]

Your lighting looks extremely effective, and as I need to add some lights to one of my fireplaces, can you add some more detail of the type, location and number of light fittings you used please?

Might be worth looking at some LED 'lighting tape'. FF junior installed some on the rear of our inglenook beam and we were very pleasantly surprised by the effect - so pleasantly surprised that we have left them in place. The 'tape' can be bought in various lengths and cut to size. The advantage over single lamps is that the colour and intensity can be selected from a very wide range (they can also be set to various multicolour fade and flashing effects though I really don't recommend this!). They are also handy for under or over kitchen units. They require minimal installation, unlike standard light fittings, and are cheap enough to at least give them a try. I think junior paid about £10 on eBay, though I don't have a link.

But something like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flexible-Strip-Multi-coloured-Waterproof-Strips/dp/B00CD2GZFM/ref=sr_1_4

 

[Me!]

LED lighting tape! I had never heard of it before now, but that looks like excellent stuff for going under wall units in a kitchen.
Oh well, I have two fireplaces that need lighting, so I guess I'll try Steve's LED spotlights in one and Flyfisher's LED tape in the other.

Thank you for the advice.