Friday, July 08, 2011

A pleasant surprise...

Martin finally took the hideous gas heater out of the dining room.  I've been wanting it gone for about 3 years, and it only took 15 minutes to get it done.  And, when we took it off, we discovered that opening up the fireplace was going to be a much easier job than we thought.

The people who installed the heater (which my dad tells me is a non-vented heater) didn't even bother blocking up the fireplace.  They just put up some truly hideous brick, installed some faux hearthstones, and whacked the heater on top.  So we already have an open fireplace.  We just need to chip out the ugly old bricks and install the fire surround we have out in the back garden (Martin bought it off somebody for about £20, and it's a cast iron fire surround!).  Oh, and have the chimney swept, but apparently that only costs about a tenner to have done.  We will have a proper fireplace in our dining room, which I am pretty jazzed about.  Now we will just have to find a source for firewood.  Martin's parents use coal in their fireplace, but I much prefer a wood fire.  And I'll have to learn about proper fireplace maintenance, as well.

There's something kind of primitave about having an open fire in the house that really appeals to me.  And it's in the back room of the oldest part of the house, so it's a massive fireplace that was probably used for cooking on at one point.  Nice to know that if the world as we know it ended tomorrow, I would be able to do some cooking for the family in our house.

I sort of like to think about that sometimes.  What would we do if civilization as we know it ended tomorrow and we were thrown back to the middle ages?  I'm a total freak about post-apocalyptic fiction and am (slightly) obsessed with learning how to do things like hand sewing, mending, preserving food, gardening, etc.  Just in case, you know?  A little bit crazy, but part of my charm.

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