13 November 2016
For the past week I've been doing a little work in the kitchen. Primarily taking down the "old" woodwork that is around the fireplace. Although it's obviously old in age, the style doesn't fit with anything else in the house. I am expecting to find original bead board behind it.
There was nothing that I would call fire resistant covering the two holes that had been knocked through the original chimney. The one on the upper right appears to have been original, or at least it was there before the bead board was installed because the edges of the hole around it were cut nice and clean, and the hole itself is lined with clay tile that is now disintegrating. It has it's own flue in the chimney. Anyone have any idea what it was for?
The lower hole in the center is very rough. Obviously knocked through with a hammer and chisel. The bead board around it is rough, and splintered. I'm thinking that this hole was created to accommodate a wood stove at some point in time. The black color that you can see is soot and charred paint and wood. There was a 3/4" gap between the bead board and the back of the brick veneer, allowing some of the heat and smoke to be drawn up behind the veneer and in to the hole. I guess you could say that this arrangement put the house at grave risk of burning down. We're lucky it didn't.
There were no more brick ties holding the last 3' or so of veneer. Amy and I tried to tilt it and lower it to the floor carefully, but that didn't work out. I think the word "collapsed" would be an appropriate description. No toes were injured in the staging of this photograph.
So here is the east wall of the kitchen stripped bare. There is still a little bead board left on the lower right corner because the ends are behind the bead board on the north wall and I don't want to damage them. I know the bead board was original to the construction of this room because the 4 courses of brick just above the fireplace sit proud of the rest of the brick courses above them by 1/4" or so. We will need to do some masonry work in the fireplace to get it back to some kind of original appearance.
For the past week I've been doing a little work in the kitchen. Primarily taking down the "old" woodwork that is around the fireplace. Although it's obviously old in age, the style doesn't fit with anything else in the house. I am expecting to find original bead board behind it.
After a few minutes of work, I do find the bead board I was expecting.
What I wasn't expecting at all, is that the brick work going from floor to ceiling is a veneer! The bead board runs behind most of it.
I disassembled the wall as carefully as I could since the bricks are also old, and we can use them to make repairs to the 3 chimneys and the skirt walls when it comes time to work on those.
There was nothing that I would call fire resistant covering the two holes that had been knocked through the original chimney. The one on the upper right appears to have been original, or at least it was there before the bead board was installed because the edges of the hole around it were cut nice and clean, and the hole itself is lined with clay tile that is now disintegrating. It has it's own flue in the chimney. Anyone have any idea what it was for?
The lower hole in the center is very rough. Obviously knocked through with a hammer and chisel. The bead board around it is rough, and splintered. I'm thinking that this hole was created to accommodate a wood stove at some point in time. The black color that you can see is soot and charred paint and wood. There was a 3/4" gap between the bead board and the back of the brick veneer, allowing some of the heat and smoke to be drawn up behind the veneer and in to the hole. I guess you could say that this arrangement put the house at grave risk of burning down. We're lucky it didn't.
It's hard to tell from this picture, but based on where the paint starts and stops, it looks like there was originally a regular mantle here. Probably one that was similar to the others in the house.
So here is the east wall of the kitchen stripped bare. There is still a little bead board left on the lower right corner because the ends are behind the bead board on the north wall and I don't want to damage them. I know the bead board was original to the construction of this room because the 4 courses of brick just above the fireplace sit proud of the rest of the brick courses above them by 1/4" or so. We will need to do some masonry work in the fireplace to get it back to some kind of original appearance.
That was really need to be done , Such kind of electric chimneys were getting used till 1990-95. You can have very thoughtful appliances at Kaff now.
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