Fireplaces and Hearths

[WildGeeseLn]

I'd love to see your fireplace photos!!

A couple months ago, I found out that the old kitchen fireplace was originally located where the POs had installed a tiny little half bathroom on my first floor, under the stairs. I knew it had to be there, since the massive stone foundation for the hearth was in the basement, but I wasn't quite sure what was going on behind the bathroom walls until I removed them. What I think I've pieced together is that the original 1830s house was 1.5 stories, with quite a wide hearth/chimney (the hearth foundation is around 8' long, but part of it now crosses a newer doorway). At some point, likely when they converted the house to 2 stories, they removed the kitchen fireplace. Then later, when they added the oil tank, they re-built the much narrower chimney that I have today and then built it into the bathroom wall.

I have decided that I would rather have a functioning fireplace than a downstairs bathroom (crazy, I know), but I don't have a lot to go on as far as style. Anyone have any knowledge of early 19th century fireplaces or photos of their own? It's a farmhouse, so probably not fancy. But I'm not sure if the hearth would be brick or stone (it's a stone house), if there would be wooden paneling with decorative detail or just plaster around/above it, or what the mantle would look like. I have some beautiful hand hewn beams from elsewhere in the house, and they would make a beautiful rustic mantle, but I'm thinking 1830s may have been a more elegant, painted mantle similar to my window trim?

Even if your fireplace isn't the same age/style, why not share your photos/bragging rights here anyways!!

The photos below the hearth being "excavated" from the former bathroom floor, and the general location of the fireplace under the stairs. There is also a photo of the upstairs chimney on the other side of the house, which obviously has stove attachments. Someone told me the little shelves are "jam shelves" to keep jam jars warm in the winter. The person who told me is a local farmer, whose farm houses all have the same feature in all of the chimneys.

[Sow's Ear Mal]

So coooooll!!!!! Can't offer much in terms of mantel or hearth styles. I know that there are some hallmarks for certain eras, but I think they are also very regionalized. My place out east (Nova Scotia) has a cooking hearth. It is red brick, built on a basalt base. The original mantel would have been fairly simple but large, and the bake oven and clean-out may or may not have had a door over it. Probably had a paneled overmantel. Painted softwood. Again, this is 1799 Nova Scotia, influenced by Planter's architecture from the US, Georgian styles, and affected by financial status. You really need to visit any local museums that are located in period homes. I'm so disappointed that my current stone house never had a cooking fireplace, especially since contemporary examples here, built by the same builder, do. It was just at the point of turnover to cast stoves, and I guess the owners of mine had chosen the modern option.

[kelt65]

I won't be installing them until perhaps the end of the year but I did score some mantel upgrades for the house. The first two are in need of some cleanup and restoration (nothing serious)

So this for the dining room / second parlor room:


It has these faces carved into the capitals:


This one for the front parlor room / sitting room:



And this one for a room in the back:

[Gothichome]

All nice mantles kelt65. That last one would look just fine in Gothichome.

[kelt65]

All nice mantles kelt65. That last one would look just fine in Gothichome.

Hah, here's one for your house ...

[NY Linda]

Although my house was built in 1891, I've had a few architectural historians tell me that some of the building materials in my house are much older than that. For example, the "signature brick" in my fireplace is from a company that went out of business in 1868.

I've got three mantels, one is 1891 vintage, but two were thought to be close to your house's build date. Below is a picture of one (pardon the mess, it was taken when I first moved in). The other is very similar in design, but has slightly different pillars. A historic house in my town built in the 1820s has an almost identical mantel, so I would imagine you'd be looking for something along these lines. One mantel in the historic house was painted to look like black marble.

Hope this helps!

[Casey]

Hi,
I will try to post a bunch of mantel pictures, starting with the one I drew and built in 2001.

Ones I stripped and repainted:




Then a few more (these are all from the same house!!!)




Casey

[Casey]

Although my house was built in 1891, I've had a few architectural historians tell me that some of the building materials in my house are much older than that. For example, the "signature brick" in my fireplace is from a company that went out of business in 1868.

I've got three mantels, one is 1891 vintage, but two were thought to be close to your house's build date. Below is a picture of one (pardon the mess, it was taken when I first moved in). The other is very similar in design, but has slightly different pillars. A historic house in my town built in the 1820s has an almost identical mantel, so I would imagine you'd be looking for something along these lines. One mantel in the historic house was painted to look like black marble.

Hope this helps!

Hi, That is definitely Federal style. Very much in the mode which we have in the Shenandoah Valley.
Casey

[Mick_VT]

I get the feeling you are looking for something a little more like this?


Or at least, I get the feeling that is what might have been there

[jharkin]

We have 3...

The main central chimney has 2 hearts, one in each of the front 2 rooms (typically a bedroom and parlor in a center chimney cape).

This one is in what we use as the TV den. Hearth extension is original, firebox was rebuild 10 years ago when the PO had the chimney taken down and rebuilt brick by brick. The works was done by a very well known historic masonry specialist and they did a wonderful job, real tall shallow rumford design that drafts like a hoover.

Fireplace surround is original as best I can tell.



This is the hearth in the other room. This one was similarly rebuilt. mantle is a conundrum as the way its asymmetric makes me think the hearth opening location was moved at some point in a misguided renovation or something.



Center chimney Capes usually have a third fireplace in the keeping room at back. In our case we dont and that keeping room extends into the ell where there is a third fireplace on a separate chimney.



And then the enigma - fireplace #3. This is the cooking fireplace on the chimney in the ell. the ovens where functional at one point but no longer work because the woodstove pipe blocks the flue. The strange thing is that for a cooking fireplace the actual hearth opening is very small. But there is no obvious evidence that a larger one was bricked in, and it DOES have a small crane in there.