I've found a number of blog posts and how-to's on re-facing a hearth using wooden furring strips and stone facing materials to cover an existing hearth.
We use the hearth in question, it is brick and I hate the brick, it has a low wooden mantel that looks silly (crown molding detail on a 1700's house) and then feather edge wood paneling above that again, looks silly and was poorly done to be 1700's style in a 1970's addition. We also have ants in the wood paneling and it's a b*tch to treat for them in there. But they love how warm it is in winter, I guess...
So I'd like to, someday, make this a fieldstone fireplace. Nice brown or gray or mixed stones (veneer, I assume) all the way up, tearing out the mantel and paneling, and maybe putting in a slate mantel or one of reclaimed wood (I have some in the barn) placed higher than the current one.
BUT I want to do it so that the R factor is still OK for my Fireview stove and will be OK for my future larger firebox, probably a Progress but maybe a Jotul or PE depending on what's what at that time.
Thoughts?
Here is the existing hearth (pardon the "dog pen" of bookcases made up to keep the post-surgery Newfoundland from injuring herself)....
We use the hearth in question, it is brick and I hate the brick, it has a low wooden mantel that looks silly (crown molding detail on a 1700's house) and then feather edge wood paneling above that again, looks silly and was poorly done to be 1700's style in a 1970's addition. We also have ants in the wood paneling and it's a b*tch to treat for them in there. But they love how warm it is in winter, I guess...
So I'd like to, someday, make this a fieldstone fireplace. Nice brown or gray or mixed stones (veneer, I assume) all the way up, tearing out the mantel and paneling, and maybe putting in a slate mantel or one of reclaimed wood (I have some in the barn) placed higher than the current one.
BUT I want to do it so that the R factor is still OK for my Fireview stove and will be OK for my future larger firebox, probably a Progress but maybe a Jotul or PE depending on what's what at that time.
Thoughts?
Here is the existing hearth (pardon the "dog pen" of bookcases made up to keep the post-surgery Newfoundland from injuring herself)....