We've just found an inglenook fireplace...

[Daisybell1]

....and I am beside myself with excitement.

So could you all please talk me down and tell me the drawbacks of fully opening it up.

My negatives so far are:

Drafts
It will collapse during the night
Drafts
Will dwarf the log burner which I've already bought (and looked fine when I thought I had a standard sized fireplace)
Drafts

Seriously, are there any drawbacks to setting the log burner back into the fireplace when previously it was going to sit in front? Will I lose a large amount of heat into the fireplace rather than coming out into the room?

And what does your listing say is its reason for listing?

The builder brought us some props, but we're too scared to un-brick it, in order to put them in (we need to do a lot of mucking out of stone to get the props vertical).

The plan is to put a proper concrete lintel in so that the stone arch can just be decorative. I'm not sure of any carving yet but I do know there was decoration on the outside which has been hacked off to make the chimney breast flush

And we're not listed, amazingly!

It's a stone lintel? For some reason I thought it was wooden!
Hope you get sorted, sounds very exciting!

Yes its stone, but its in 3 pieces with a key stone in the middle. There's been movement and so there was about 1mm stone holding up the key stone.

There's a wooden beam above the stone, but that really needs to come out as wood in a chimney breast doesn't seem like a good idea...

Not necessarily - it might have been there a lot longer than the stone bit! Is the beam wider than the width of the stone arch?

It might be a strip for attaching wainscotting, which might tie in with its Georgian history. Do you have any other period features?

Oh no oh no! Hope you can save it...

We're in the process of buying a house with 2 inglenooks. We were thinking of trying these.
www.chimneyballoon.com
does anyone else have any experience of their effectiveness?