Monday 22 October 2007

Cosy


This is one of my favourite things to do... I just love to sit and stare at our fire in the dinning room.
We actually only made this into a working fire place last Christmas. Strangely I wasn't keen to have a real... working fire until we re organised the dinning room. We have an original fireplace in the lounge too, but for some reason we actually paid a lot of money to have a ' looks like a real fire' gas coal one put in, I don't know what we were thinking, ah yes I remember... white walls... fire = smoke= mess lol.

Sorry I will take a picture of the lounge fire place tomorrow.


When we bought our house both fire places were covered by nasty wooden boards with what I now know were lethal gas fires... one had a minuscule hole in the pipe. The mantle was also covered in around ten layers of gloss paint. We had no idea of what we would find behind the boards but we didn't care, it was one of the first things we did, I couldn't believe it when we managed to remove the gas fire and boards to reveal a gorgeous original Victorian fire place, complete with tiles and hearth. The whole fire had been painted in a horrid cream gloss but after what felt like ages (two weeks) of pain staking removal with a fantastic product... similar to covering the whole fire place with putty then covering it with cling film. We revealed the original fire tiles. They were in perfect condition, much to do we suspected with the horrid paint keeping them preserved for years. Our house was built in 1850 so it really was a lovely surprise to find them.


The dinning room was not so exciting.... only a blank space where once there would of been a lovely cast iron insert. We were lucky to find an insert in lour local antiques center and with a little hard work we have created our fire... it makes the dinning room the heart of our home during winter. We also moved our old sofa into the dinning room... so this afternoon Ella and I have been enjoying the warmth of the fire. Ella loves to sit at the table and draw while I sit and knit on the sofa and the best bit is there is no TV so only relaxing, reading and crafting occurs when the fire is lit. . . ah I love it :)





Please excuse the quality of the photographs, my camera doesn't like taking pictures with poor light.



My current project... knitting a cosy scarf


and reading these books from the library...




I hope you are all feeling cosy too...

xFaye

13 comments:

a pink-bee said...

What a nice post, I am having a cozy day here, roast in the oven -while it pours outside. A nice book to read- Need to get to work on lots of things though- maybe tomorrow :) Love your blog :)
crystal

pinkgreen said...

I'm cosy in front of our fire at the moment - you can't beat it. You are so lucky to have found one intact in your house. Our dining room one has been taken out and the wall plastered and I would love to replace it even if we never lit it. One for the project list I feel!
Cathy X

Curlew Country said...

Oooh Faye I'm so envious of your gorgeous fire. I grew up with fires in the sitting room and the kitchen and we had one in our first house, but not since and the new one won't either, boo-hoo! It's realy wierd living with gas fires, I miss coal so much!
D'you know I've been racking my brains since I first saw my pretty little new jar about where I've seen one before so thanks for letting me know - it was definitely on your blog! Great minds and all that eh?!
Stephx

Claire said...

I wish I were in front of the fire sewing or crocheting instead of reading your post at work! Rach and I have original fireplaces in the house we share but there's no chance of them working at all as they're completely blocked up - it's a shame when people blocked them in but it's far better than the phase I remember from my childhood of people ripping them out and putting in "real stone" fireplaces.

What colour is your scarf? xx

jessica daisy said...

What a gorgeous fireplace, and how lovely to cosy up on the sofa in front of it, making something cosy!
We only have the original victorian one in our bedroom, although we have two fireplaces downstairs, the original cast iron surrounds had been ripped out, and new brick fire places had been built along the whole wall, but that looked too much like a pub for me, so we had that plastered over and although we still have the grate in the living room and an open fire, I would really like to put a reclaimed one if we have the money.
Jessx

Handplockat said...

totally kove your blog
=)

hugs from the north of Sweden

Carol said...

Wonderful. You cannot beat a real fire and your one is gorgeous.
This time of year is made all the better by real fires to get all cosy on front of.
We removed our gas 'looky likey' fire and put in a stove as we had to have a flue as well. It is great and if you keep the door shut there is not much mess apart from a little dust when cleaning it out.
I do prefer the open fire though.
Great photo.
x

Barbara said...

what a lovely blog! I enjoyed a journey of your world! Greetings Barbara

vintage twist said...

Gorgeous fireplace

pink-petal-designs said...

mmm, what a lovely fireplace you have, all nice and cosy, nice scarft too.
Sarah x

Reginas Cottage said...

What a loveley fireplace you have
and the scarfs, too
We have a fireplace in our livingroom
it's so cosy on a cold day.
Have a nice day Regina

Philigry said...

your scarf is beautiful! glad i foubd your blog! i have fireplace envy! i love it! looks like the best seat in the house!

Unknown said...

Uuuuh absolutely love the fireplace. Is it cast iron ? Did you bought it or was it already in? I did some research and i found this Adam Constantine Cast Iron Fireplace that looks really similar. What do you think ?