The Essentials of Life: FIRE

So the fireplace....

This is the way it looked when we first started.

 Actually it pretty much looked like this until later in the fall when it began getting chilly in the evenings.

We didn't mess with it at all.... what were we to do with it anyway at this point?

So the fireplace is a very large trapezoid shape with a smaller trapezoid shape on the upper part.  The entire thing is rocked using rocks right off the property.  It has obviously been done in stages and with some measurements.    Some.

One side is slightly thicker than the other and the 4 vent holes are unevenly spaced at best.   And the mortar... oh, the mortar.  The rock was put up in three stages (what is completed that is) because there is 3 shades of grey for the mortar!   And who knows what the top part was going to be?  The upper trapezoid looks like they were in the process of flattening it out like the lower one is....who knows!

The mantle is a piece of juniper with a live edge that was cut here on the property as well. So quite a bit of uniqueness to the fireplace.
A few months later, it still looked the same except......

We had started using it.  A little.  We had discovered that it had been used and that the doors were beautiful!  They were etched with a beautiful scene on each door.

So we cautiously began using it.

Wow.  What a fireplace!  It is huge inside and creates quite a draft and throws off tons of heat.  Good thing since at this point we still have holes everywhere!

And rat poo.

Forest rat poo everywhere.  yuk.

But, due to the aforementioned lack of electricity... we don't stay here long after dark to work. And at this point most of our work is being done outside.

So at Christmas that year (2012) while my dad was here visiting we were here one evening we looked the fireplace insert up on the internet.  It's a furnace!

It is supposed to have blowers and duct work that can heat your house!

But....
I'll save that for another story.....