Now you need to gget sme brick to fill in the space at the bottom of the fire box and the same flooring you have to replace the hearth . You also need to close off that firebox or have your heating going up the chimney Taht meta hole was where the stove vented out into the chimney so It needs to be clased and my guess is finding matching brick will be tricky so clase it off hang a great piece of art and add amantel

Try to find a local mason to help. Call a nearby brickyard to get names of masons. They may be busy when you call, but later they may show up and can be really helpful! Between the mason and the brickyard, they may be able to match your brick or find an alternative that would look good.

Did the contractor save the bricks from the hearth so that you might be able to reuse them? Are there any other matching bricks outside on the property? At my house, bricks were used for steps, skirt and driveway edging, where they could be dug up and cleaned if I needed more bricks. A few extras were just lying around.

Is there a wood floor in the room?

There is a wood floor (but only near by this small part of the room), so they covered it over with vinyl plank as the wood didn’t extend the entire way into the kitchen (kitchen used to be linoleum).

I am going to paint it, so I fortunately won’t need to match the brick. BUT! I do have the bricks from the hearth. I did know if there was an easier way to stabilize the top bricks. As this area won’t be seen but a mason will have to address the hole in the middle.

The masons that helped me were not very expensive.

I would keep the opening and block off the vent to the chimney and put electric logs in it, and then tile the floor in front. I would also add a mantle. There are rubber bumpers, you could have put around that hearth, if you had kept it in tact. They work very well with small children in the house. I had them for years on mine. Children are now grown, and the bumpers have all been removed.

Awesome, okay, a quote for the mason it is! The hearth made the room unusable as a dining room, so it had to go. It’s an ill placed, off centered fireplace that I’m trying to work with.

And yes to needing a mantle

My parents and myself have always used the fireplace hearths as stages for all the kids to perform! Many songs and poems were done on them. Wonderful at family gatherings.