The Bungalow Pit

As I’ve mentioned before, the fireplace in the living room had to be replaced. It wasn’t just a white painted brick tragedy, it was also a hazard.

We lowered the mantle and picked a mix of aged bricks. The mantle wasn’t done very well, we’ll have to have it replaced (don’t get me started) and the quarter round along the base wasn’t even stained (again, don’t get me started) but at least the Fireplace Freddie crew is out of the house.

P.S. Use Fireplace Freddie at your own risk! If we could’ve done one thing different so far, it would’ve been using a different company to do the chimneys.

What seemed a simple enough project turned into a nightmare. Once the chimneys were torn down we could see what bad shape the bricks were in on the inside, another decision needed to be made…

Just replace the chimneys and leave the mantles as-is on the inside (and run the risk of having them crumble during the next earthquake?) Or take on rebuilding the interior brick work in both the living room and the den while we’re at it? We picked the later, and so began an agonizing (and expensive) four month struggle. We quickly realized the company doing the work wanted to do as little as possible and had absolutely no eye for restoration work. Our hearts stopped when they showed us the fake brick samples they planned on using and the budget looking fireboxes (complete with brass borders and glass doors) they planed on installing. If we didn’t stop everything and start educating ourselves on fireboxes and bricks immediately we were about to be living in a Ramada Inn nightmare.

We found better (larger) fireboxes and got quotes that were, of course, thousands of dollars less than what they were quoting, we ordered them. Then we ran to Pennsylvania Builders Supply, left a deposit and brought some of their brick samples home to get a better idea.

We decided to do a mix of the Red Primero and Chocolate Primero Castaic Bricks on the inside and outside for a more natural look. After getting their insane quote for the “upgrade” in brick materials we double checked and found them for thousands less. Deja vu, and so it goes.

The good news: we found out the person who built our house built many of the houses in the area, but built this one for himself—so he added some extras to this one, such as two fireplaces. There is one in the den on the South side of the house and one in the living room on the North side.

The bad news: they both had to be torn down and replaced. The bricks were in such bad shape you could remove them by hand outside, sunlight was visible through them on the inside, there was no cap on them so anything (and everything) went down them, and the previous owner let bougainvillea and vines grow up them (and in them!) for years.

We had to decide, tackle this one at a later date, or deal with them now? We figured if we put it off we’d never get to it so better to deal with it now. Let the demolition begin.