Andre smashed off the old white brick hearth and began prepping for the new slate hearth.

The new hearth would be wider & deeper to accommodate the woodstove.

ABOVE:

The only photo I have showing the old white hearth. As you can see it's not only very narrow (log basket kept falling off), but ugly to boot.

Andre spent a good couple weeks toiling with the chimney preparation and finally came up with a solution the night before we had the Grey boys booked for the woodstove install. He was working on it until 3 AM!

Right: Some flashing will provide some heat reflection around the stove.

The Grey boys came over to lend some muscle in transporting the 200 pound beast from our garage to the living room.

Terasen Gas: Kiss my a---

We spent a whole day sourcing some rough timbers, then Andre spent his entire Sunday cutting them to the right size and shape (mantle has a cut-out) and sanding them down. Everything in our garage was under a good solid 1/4 inch of sawdust - gasp!!

It took us two eveing sessions from after dinner until about 12:30 to place all the rock. It's tricky to get them all spaced in and maintain a "natural" look by altering shapes, sizes & colours.

This job truly sucked. Messy as anything, and finicky.

The end result is quite nice, though.

Some drywall covers the remaining hideous brick.

I stained the mantle & pillars, and applied a few coats of verathane to finish off the woodwork.

A couple coats of paint to the drywall

and......