remodelling a fireplace - tiles?

[willowstar]

Hello again

We are replacing a hideous 70s fireplace in our home which is about a 100 years old. Now, I have looked into buying a new fireplace and most are completely overpriced for us and to be honest I don't really like them. They are just too grand for the room. The repro victorian ones are OK but the common range of tiles is limited and I can't find any to match my colour scheme. it is an open coal fire.

So...this sounds dodgy but we are thinking of creating our own from scratch. I like the old style tiled fireplaces, you know the ones from less grand homes about a hundred years ago. OH is pretty handy so he is going to create a concrete mold for the hearth and surround and we are going to tile it with some lovely textured marble tiles I have found. We are on the lookout for heatproof cement and grout.

Does anyone have any experience of doing anything like this? I think it is probably quite unusual but when you look at the fireplaces out there, anything within our budget is just naff and they all look the same.

thoughts?

I think you should try ebay before you try anything this complicated!

I had the task of replacing a missing fireplace for our victorian flat, the chimney piece was in a state, someone had stuck concrete to the brick so many of them were damaged and needed covering as they were irreparable.

I couldn't afford anything new and anyway repro stuff would just look naff in an old house I thought. So I looked on ebay and found loads of brilliant victorian fireplaces on there, you search items using the little tab which lets you choose by the nearest stuff to you.

I got three in the end, two didn't fit easily, the third was a simple job - so I sold the other two to a furniture dealer and made a little profit!

Seriously they go for about a fiver sometimes. Try and look at your neighbours fires if they are original, to get an idea of an appropriate style - also measure them!!

Good luck. Also some sellers will deliver for nothing or a small fee.

Don#t be put off by reclamation sites or yards - they all charge hideous prices, and one man told me I wouldn't find anything on ebay under 2 grand yes well ours cost £25 in the end.

where are you? guy got me original tiles, original fireplace, matched to my room colours about the right era and fitted with new hearth for 1200 all in. - all sandblasted and oiled. looks lovely and for the price of purchase in london. can recommend thought dont know if prices have changed any in 4 years.

hope this works:

www.thelocalweb.net/ListingByID.asp?id=%2016610

it's blasted irony in wembley

We rebuilt our open fire including building a hearth. We used granite look floor tiles which cost £60 for a pack (used one pack) and made a wooden surround. Had to build the whole thing including fireback and fire lintel...whole thing cost us about £400 and took about 1 week (3days drying time for the concrete hearth).