My clients had hated their fireplace ever since they bought this house - now over twenty years. And then for about the last ten years the fireplace had been unusable due to a family of racoons making a family in the chimney! They knew they wanted to stay with a wood burning fireplace and so started looking at fire box inserts. The problem was the fire opening is small, as is the living space and I knew a firebox would throw off too much heat to sit close to it comfortably. Also, they wanted to have an open fire and wood burning fireboxes are meant to be run closed. And in my mind, a big negative, is they just don’t look very nice! It’s one thing when a fire is burning but the majority of the time it’s just a black box. I also knew that the look and feel of this focal point was very important to these people and a black metal box was not going to be a look they would love. So we changed direction and started to look at the option of rebuilding the existing fireplace. This of course meant finding a mason to do this work. We were fortunate in finding the man we did, he is a WETT certified (Wood Energy Technology Transfer which ensures everything is installed safely and in accordance with building and fire code requirements) This house is very much an Arts and Crafts style house so we incorporated that look in the custom mantle and surround. They now love their fireplace and have enjoyed many happy hours enjoying it! D. Danniels-French