Day 167

When we took down the chimney as part of moving our kitchen to an entire new part of the first floor, we found out the fireplace was in dire shape. Both of us were fine with removing the fireplace, but as our contractor friend started the demolition process, we realized there was much more that needed to be done. The chimney was crumbling from the inside out. Mice had taken over as inhabitants of the random rocks that revealed themself after the wall and fireplace was removed. I am no expert, but what I saw did not look like a  safely constructed fireplace. Our contractor agreed. Based on the rodent evidence and the condition of the rocks, he figured the chimney was more of a decoration and hadn't been used in quite some time. Considering how crumbly everything looked, he did some unexpected but necessary stabilization so we could continue the kitchen remodel and still have a safe place to work and live. Down the line, we do plan on removing the entire chimney, but we are hoping to coordinate that with a roofing upgrade in the future.

Once we demolished the portion of the fireplace we needed to to build our kitchen, I had the envious job of taking wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of heavy bricks away to the backyard. Wanting to be a part of the process rather than a bystander, I was happy to take on the task and appreciated the workout it provided. However, we didn't just want a pile of bricks in the backyard. Though we could’ve offered them to someone else or simply thrown them away, we wanted to be creative and use these in some other way.

Since these bricks were part of a fireplace, we knew they could withstand heat. Since many of them seemed in very viable condition, it made sense to use them as a brand new backyard firepit. 

I picked through the best of the best and started laying out a few potential designs. My better half saw my ideas and improved them. Before you knew it, we started creating a firepit.

We cracked open a  few cold ones, made s’mores, and enjoyed our handiwork.