Fire (Not) In The Hole
As of today we’ve lived in our house for six whole months. How crazy is that? Can you believe this little adventure was half a year ago?
And in all that time we’ve never formally introduced you to Bart. How rude of us.
Bart, aka Black Bart the woodstove insert, is hard to miss in our kitchen. We know the previous owners got a lot of use out of him (although they did warn us that he made the house pretty smoky and coated a lot of nearby surfaces with fine black dust). We’d always planned to replace him down the road when we hopefully convert our fireplace into a double fireplace (that can be enjoyed from the living room as well as the kitchen).
But Clara spurred us into action a bit sooner. See, the bean is just too obsessed with Bart. And the potential harm to Clara thanks to a searing hot 30+ year old wood burning stove has always outweighed any potential benefits. So although we moved in the middle of winter, we didn’t fire him up once. And Clara still finds the sharp metal edges of Bart oddly fascinating, no matter how many times we say no or redirect her with toys/the dog/insane dance moves, etc. In fact two especially pointy corners are right at “pulling up level” – which makes us even more nervous now that she’s about to be toddling around.
Sure Clara, why not play with a potentially scorching hot surface with sharp metal corners that’s conveniently located right at baby level? After all, it was last tested more than thirty one years ago – before either of your parents were even born.
All kidding aside, we know many folks who love wood stoves (even those with kiddos), but Bart just wasn’t working for our fam. We couldn’t keep denying that he was truly (and weirdly) a Clara magnet, and after she once managed to get the stove door open and her hand into some soot before we could pull her away, Sherry and I were officially fed up with this sharp and dirty metal monster that we weren’t even using.
Never ones to act hastily (you know us, we prefer to overanalyze while hemming and hawing), first we considered locking the doors with a kid-proof lock, adding foam pads to the pokey parts, and even blocking him off with baby gates or some sort of homemade blockade contraption. But in the end we realized that building everything short of a moat around something that we didn’t use and already planned to replace down the road seemed more than a little wacky. In other words: it was time to bid ol’ Bart adieu. So we borrowed some confidence from Layla and Kevin‘s fireplace makeover and decided to give our kitchen a Black-Bart-ectomy yesterday (don’t worry, we won’t trash him- Bart will live on, but more on that later).
When it came to the whole wood stove removal thing, I didn’t really know where to start. And this was one of the few times in my life that google was no help. So during Clara’s afternoon nap (so as not to set a bad example slash taunt her) I just sort of started pulling at things. Lucky for me, the flashing around the sides easily pried away. So much so that I’m kinda surprised Clara hadn’t figured it out yet. Yikes.
I learned there was only a little bit of glue holding the three pieces flimsily in place (which made the stove look flush on all sides).
The only questionable moment was when I revealed a bunch of wires on one side and worried that some electrical work might be involved. Thankfully I soon realized that they were just connected to a fan on the back of the unit, so I didn’t have to disconnect anything after all (I just kept it all attached and removed it all together). Phew.
With all sides of the stove revealed, the only place I could see it attached to the house was right here at the top. It seemed to be bolted to a vent that snaked up into the chimney. So I figured I’d just attempt to take that apart and hope for the best.
The good news was that my hunch was right- those bolts were the only things holding that baby in place. The bad news was that the bolts were really friggin hard to get off. Okay, just one of the five was (the top of that bolt was so soft that my wrench had trouble gripping it). Oh and did I mention that space was tiiiight? My skinnier-armed wife tried to save the day, but she’s also shorter-armed, so alas… no dice.
But I kept at it (and Sherry kept trying as if her arms were growing by the second). And after getting covered in ash and enduring a few knuckle scrapes we got Bart fully detached from the vent. Ta dah!
Okay, so it was less of a perky “ta-dah!” and more of a grunting “ohmygoodness” because that beast was HEAVY. But as you can see, we managed to shimmy Bart out of the fireplace and onto a piece of scrap cardboard (which helped us slide the whole darn thing out of the way). So our fireplace could go from this…
…to this:
Admittedly it’s not the prettiest before & after. In fact, the after kinda looks uglier in a way… despite the fact that I got my Cinderella on and scrubbed the inside it with some warm water and mild soap:
Sherry really wanted to be the one to yoink this beast out all by herself (short arms be darned) so she made me scrub things down while she sulked slash snapped embarrassing photos. I’m making that face for two reasons. 1) because the sooty clean-up job was pretty nasty, and 2) because I’m realizing that a photo of me in my high school gym shorts would end up on the Internet. Yep, still own ‘em and still fit in ‘em… sort of.
Short shorts aside, Bart is currently residing in our dining room (where Clara rarely goes), just waiting to be craigslisted or otherwise donated (haven’t yet figured out if a Big B is worth anything to anyone, but we’ll share the craigslist link if he ends up there).
And hopefully soon we’ll have a prettier version of our fireplace to share. Immediate plans for it include painting the firebox a dark charcoal color to even out the stained brick interior. And that’ll probably be followed quickly by painting the brick and mantel. Spoiler alert: we’re leaning towards bright glossy white (we’re planning to bring some color onto the kitchen walls, so a white fireplace should be a nice counterpart). But we’ll share all those painting details as we go.
Down the road we’re also planning to take the fireplace makeover a step further – perhaps by eventually tiling it, beefing up the mantle, or even framing it out all the way up to the ceiling to give it more height. Not to mention the whole double-siding plan. But all that future fireplace stuff is TBD at this point. We’ll just have to see where we end up. Oh, and Sherry wanted me to mention that she scraped off that big circular blotch of glue that you can see just outside the upper left corner of the firebox in the photo above. Despite how easily the metal flashing peeled off, the gummy glue didn’t come off the brick as easily. So she got all ninja on that blob and ended up using an exacto knife to slice it off in pieces.
Have you guys removed a wood stove or any other fireplace insert? Was google surprisingly unhelpful? Does anyone have a kid who loves their wood stove as much as ours? Do you think Big Bart is worth craigslisting or should we donate him to the Habitat For Humanity ReStore?
Psst- We’re sharing a fun, functional, and affordable little kid-art corner over on BabyCenter today.
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Just in case it hasn’t already been mentioned, Scrubbing Bubbles works on chimney soot.
Oh why, why are babies drawn to safety hazards?!? we had this old, crummy coal stove in our kitchen (house built in the 1850s), and it was on a pointy brick hearth and just at toddler height…!! We removed it ASAP, and put a cabinet over the spot on the floor, so we didn’t have to repair the floor (and for more storage!) Looks much better!
You all rock! I love that you just bit the bullet and yanked the whole stove out in one afternoon. Clara will be much safer now and that always feels great to make our houses more munchkin friendly.
The fireplace in my childhood home looked exactly the same! That house looks very similar to yours, so they were probably built around the same time.
Saw your comment about replacing the kitchen floors with cork. We moved into a new house two years ago and the hardwood in the kitchen was trashed by their 110 pound Bernese Mt. dog. The scratches in the floor were deeper than a 1/4 inch, so refinishing was not an option. We ripped out the floors and put in cork and I LOVE it- even still after two years. It’s super easy to install because it’s floating flooring and if anything disastrous ever happens to a plank, we just take off a base board and “un-snap” the planks to the damaged piece, swap out damaged piece for one of the spares we have in the basement, and carefully snap them all back in the right order (flooring guys recommended numbering them as we disassembled the floor). Then reattach the base boards and-viola!- complete floor once again.
Benefits: soft on the feet and I’ve dropped lots of fragile things on it and only had two things actually break. (My 4-year-old likes to help unload the dishwasher and I let her because I’m hoping she’ll always want to help Momma unload it- like even when she’s 14. Okay, I’m dreaming…)
Possible downside: it does fade. Our kitchen has two skylights and lots of windows. Even though we live in cloudy and depressing Pittsburgh where the sun doesn’t shine 8 months out of the year, it’s still fading. There is a difference in floor color underneath the back door rug. It doesn’t look like that would be too much of a problem in your current kitchen, but if you do knock out the dining room wall, you could see an increase of natural light in there, so be prepared for that.
Just my two cents! I know whatever y’all decide will look fantastic! It’s why I keep reading!
We have had cork in our kitchen for 5 years now. It is nice on the feet. The color we chose matches the cherry in the living room. It does have some marring now but we have a large family and it is very high trafic. The marring is really only noticeable when I am on my hands and knees scrubing it. I would do it again. We did get a higher-end brand however. Some are pretty thin on the cork. Good luck.
I don’t know if someone else has already said this, but are you sure you guys want to get rid of it? you can always paint the fireplace white and leave the insert and put up a fireplace cage thing, they make them really beautiful so that way your daughter won’t touch it when it’s on.
The reason I ask if you want to get rid of it is because of the fact that you guys live up in the iceburg land during the winter and you can use that to heat your whole house instead of gas/oil/electric (whatever it is you have). I’m thinking it will save you money to use the wood burning fireplace since both of you use this blog as the only source of income.
We would love to have a wood burning insert just to save us a couple houndred bucks in the Missouri winter.
Yup, it’s sadly definitely not up to current safety standards, so we’d rather update to something more efficient and safe if we ever want one down the line (plus it’ll have to be double-sided to work with the new fireplace configuration anyway).
xo,
s
How terrible is this? My first and only thought re: John’s Short Shorts Shot was “finally, some normal-length shorts instead of khaki Bermudas!” LOL.
Haha- that’s the most leg he’s ever shown in almost four years of blogging. He feels exposed.
xo,
s
we just moved into a house with an awesome fireplace…and one of those hideous blower contraptions. and trust me, mine is about 600 times uglier than yours. lotsa brass and gigantic wood handles going on. i totally don’t know what to do with it. it could be functional in the event of an ice storm/power outage situation. but it is just so dang ugly, i don’t know if i can live with it. plus, we are planning on painting the brick fireplace white, but can’t figure out how the insert would figure into that plan. maybe we will live through a winter and see what happens…? yours looks WAY better without the insert, btw.
My 10 month old loved the stove so much he learned to open it. One time he opened it right before church… we were very late. The next time, he climbed in as I was buckling the other kids into the car to take little guy and his dad to the airport for their flight. They made the flight, but he had a different outfit on. As soon as they got home, DH hammered the thing shut and two years later it hasn’t been opened again. The burn season here is so short, we’d only get a few days a year to even use it. It’s moving up on the list of things to go!
We have a nice looking wood stove. After a few years we had an insulated metal liner put in the flue. The stove works much better, the flue is safer and easier to clean. You probably will never use your fireplace much but you may want to have the flue checked for cracks etc. once you get serious about the new fireplace. FYI they are expensive, sorry. Thanks for all the inspiration on your site. I am still painting my piano. Black of course. It is really looking nice. I would never have attempted it without seeing the things you all have done.
Definitely try selling it before you freecycle! We tore one out a couple of years ago and sold it for $300 on craigslist. I had no idea it was even worth anything. It was also great to have someone come pick it up – those things are heavy!
Gymboree pj! My girl has the unicorn white ones! I completely trust you on transformation, but you already know that. I LOVE the dinning room, the curtains and the table “dressing up” completely make it shine. I’m sure you’ll do a beautiful job with the fireplace and the kitchen, including brick and panelling. Foe the flooring: I have laminate in the kitchen, and even though it is NOT what I wanted, I am pleased with the way it behaves. Just around the cabinets I have a line of tiles. And I’ve seen somewhere the floor covered with plywood veneer (I’m not sure about the word, I mean the thin sliver of wood which covers the furniture).
My 18 month old grandaughter was drawn like a magnet to my electric fireplace at my last home. I now live in a home with a woodstove, so far she’s ignored it but I don’t expect that to last long.
I don’t know if anyone mentioned this but there is a cleaner for creosote (sp). Lowes should have it. That might help get the brick clean or at least ready for paint.
Thanks for the tip.
xo,
s
Give craigslist a try you never know. This is the issue we had with our fireplace http://the2seasons.com/2011/01/11/real-or-fake/
Also what type of greenery is that on the mantel? We need to spiff up the mantel and I am a fan of the greenery. Thanks!
Those are my fauxpiaries (fake topiaries) from Pottery Barn a while back. I got them as gifts for my 28th b-day.
xo,
s
Good idea to get rid of that thing. We had built in space heater that was the only source of heat in the basement of our previous house. My kids never never went near it – until one day when I took a load of laundry upstairs. My then 10 month old used it stand up and got second degree burns on his hand. One of the worst days of my life. In hindsight there are so many things I would have done differently to prevent that accident – removing the heater is one of them.
Hey guys! When we bought our house, there was one of those that the previous homeowners had taken out and put in the basement. They told us it was too heavy to get rid of and we haven’t touched it either. It’s now a storage shelf…Anyway, our fireplace wall is brick and has a dark antique mantle that is out of character (I think) for our 50″s ranch house. My first idea was to paint the room and brick a white or neutral color to brighten up the room. But, it’s in the back of the house and we like it dark and cozy. So we ended up getting a coppery metallic RL paint color(eek! too bright!) and added some of our own darker hues and came up with a rich metallic espresso color which blends nicely with the mantel and I used white as an accent. I’m finally actually pleased with it and now I can move on to the next room.
John and Sherry, you have inspired me more than you know.
Thank you!
OH man that sounds deeeelicious. I love it! Such a great idea.
xo,
s
I am not kidding when I say me and my fiance started tugging at the flushing around our old oil heater the other night, then I went to pinterest and saw you were pinning fireplaces. Huh I though, went blog surfing and read this!! We want to pull ours out and make it an open fire place again (apparently it was once upon a time). We also have a wood burning heater though in the corner of our lounge room, we love it but we don’t have kids. When my nieces are here I do a mad crazy dance around it, but we plan to put a little gate/fence around it when we eventually have a bambino. Our oil heater though (affectionately known as ‘Vulcan’) is coming out SOON I’ve had enough humming and hawing, and I want to paint the bricks white like you!
Here you can see the wood burner and ‘Vulcan’ we want to pull out: http://www.ellaatbella.com/2010/12/very-brindabella-christmas.html
and
http://www.ellaatbella.com/2011/05/lounge-room.html
Woah! Vulcan is microwave-ish. Haha. Too funny! Love that he has a name.
xo,
s
We have a wood stove in our basement. When we moved in, we had the chimneys inspected and I off-handedly mentioned to the inspector that we thought the stove was annoying and would probably pull it out and dispose of it. His head whipped around and he blurted “I’ll give you $500 for it right now.” I was shocked, but he said the one we have was worth a ton of moolah (close to $1000) even though it was quite a few years old. We opted to keep it. So… moral of the story – you might want to get a chimney company to just come by and let you know what you’d need to get the chimney up to par – and ask them whether or not it could be brought up to code and be worth anything. They’d know for sure. And they might even offer to take it off your hands right then! :)
Thanks! We actually sold it to a friend already. Happy to have the beast gone!
xo,
s
My husband and I recently bought a house that has two interesting fireplaces. One is a large stone fireplace that I love… except for the pellet stove insert. We too are looking to uninstall it, but not sure what to do with it once we get it out? My thoughts have been craigslist, save it for possibly heating my hubby’s outdoor shop (if that is possible) or calling our friend who does consignment sales.
Our second fireplace isn’t really a fireplace – just a huge wood burning stove in the basement. Guess the previous owners were a fan of stoves!
Good luck with finding a plan for Bart! Would love to hear if you come up with some kind of cool way to utilize him!
We had a similar beast in our fireplace when we moved into our house. We pulled it out, and recyled the metal, and painted the brick area that the insert was covering. Our mantle is a bit built up and the brick is painted a glossy white. We loved the look without the giant black metal box in the fireplace, especialy since the fireplace is non-funtional anyway. I might have to try painting the inside next! (We also have red tile in front of the fireplace, it is just painted with the same white paint as the brick fireplace.)
I just discovered your site yesterday, and am completely hooked! Since I am a DIY flunkee in every sense of the word (I’m serious….I can’t even hammer a nail in straight), I am completely inspired by your really informative how-to’s and especially your super-witty attitude. Can’t wait to see what you guys do next. Thanks! : )
Thanks so much Vicki! So glad you found us!
xo,
s
did you ever sell your Bart? If so, please let me know the details.
Yes, for fifty bucks on Craigslist. Not sure if the guy was going to use it or scrap it for cash.
xo,
s
Did you ever figure out what needs to be done to make the fireplace usable again? We just put in an offer on a house with an insert that we think is just hideous. It would be good to know what needs to be done after the physical act of removing the insert. Thanks!
It’s just sealed off so if we want it to be usable I think all we’d need is to remove the seal at the top and bottom and get the chimney swept so it’s ready to go. We will most likely get a double sided h
gas insert though. Had one in our last house and used it all the time (and never used the wood burning one).
xo,
s