Although I liked the looks of this fireplace (and the fact it made a great place to store some wood), it had to go to make room in our living area. The chimney no longer met code, so it really was just a "feature" that took up quite a bit of space. Surprisingly enough, once the fireplace was gone, all we had to do was scrub the wall a bit and throw a carpet over the old footprint. You can hardly tell that there was a fireplace against that wall for nearly 40 years. The only thing I should do to tidy it up more is cover the the join between where the tongue & groove meet with a small strip of matching wood.
