We had a non-functioning fireplace (chimney in bad shape) in our front parlor. It served us better to just take it out and wall it over. After I took out the wood surround and broke out the brick box, I started tearing out the floor tile in front of the opening. Tile was set in a crumbly mortar and so I started digging it out. Lo and behold there was brick underneath that as you can see from the pictures forms a shallow arch.
The arch itself is not structural, the floor structure underneath is wood joists and blocking. The joist were cut into this arch shape and blocking put in to hold up the bricks. Obviously to me, somebody spent a bunch of extra time making this an arch.
My question: Why an arch? Have you seen anything like this? Is it some sort of thermal technique?
Last question: We intend to keep the wood floor that is around this hole. How would YOU go about repairing the floor here? My idea is to fill up the void with mortar to the same level of the subfloor and then finding wood to match.
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I can't actually see the arch in the brick that you are describing....so I will not try and offer any suggestions as to it's origins.
As for floor repair....I would remove the brick down to the wood framing beneath. I'm going to assume that the joists have been chopped to accomodate the brick bed, so I would sister the joists as best as possible, and install plywood subflooring in line with the existing.
Repairing the actual flooring should be fun. You are going to have to remove portions of the existing in a staggered fashion so that you can weave the new flooring in. I highly doubt you are going to be able to get a good match between the old an the new. You might consider looking into places that carry salvaged flooring and try matching that way.
Short of that...make sure to find the species and cut of the flooring you have and mess around with some stains to try and get it close.
Of course...after you do that, be prepared to have the new flooring age to a slightly different patina than the old.
Best of luck....it won't be perfect...but you should be able to get it close.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Pp, Qq
Edited 3/18/2008 12:09 pm ET by JDRHI
I have a possible idea that you may not like. I'm thinking that a prior owner, who didn't know what they were doing, built an addition onto the house by converting a covered porch (brick patio) into an enclosed room. Because the trouble it takes to build a stem wall, or put in a proper slab, they just covered the existing patio with a thin layer of "#### for concrete" to simulate the subfloor and built up from there. No crawl space, no proper foundation and a problem for some homeowner later on...YOU!
What do you think? Am I correct or totally off base?
Agreed on the joist sistering and plywood subfloor.
But I would not try to weave in matching flooring.
It appears that the opening is framed with hardwood transition strips. Leave those in place and fill the opening with a contrasting wood - different species, different width, maybe even different orientation.
Trying to match will look like a mismatch.
Making the mismatch deliberately different offers a striking focal point.
As an alternative, you could do some kind of built-in there.
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Too late....baseboard is already installed.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Pp, Qq
No can do on the built-in there. We really needed that wall to put furniture up against. The good news with that is that once the furniture is in place, no one will ever notice whatever patch goes down there.
I never considered removing the brick, but just went over a wiggled some of them and I don't think it'll be too hard to remove and sister in new joists, so thanks for that advice.I agree with the contrast versus match approach to wood floor repair. There are transition strips around the border, so I'm actually considering just nailing down stained an poly'd plywood into the repair. I have a scrap of birch ply from the built-in that should fit.The existing floors run through the entire house, were refinished by a previous owner poorly and are very very thin. At some point in the future, we'll inevitably replace the entire floor and at that time, we'll tear up the contrasting patch and replace it all with new floor.It's a shallow "barrel vault" arch that springs from the drywall, arches up about 3 inches to the center and then drops down about 3 inches closest to where the picture was taken. I just can't understand why someone would go to the effort to make this an arch...By the way, room is over a full stone basement that I believe to be original to the house. It looks to me, though, that the fireplace and chimney MAY have been added at a later date. Just one of many many mysteries to this house.
At some point in the future, we'll inevitably replace the entire floor...
Well there's a bit of information that mighta been helpful in the original post.
; )
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Pp, Qq
saw this once in a ceiling on a house built c1850. IIRC (memeory is really foggy on the nitty gritty details) the basement (or garden level) room where this ceiling was, was ~10x15, maybe narrower. It was near the coal chute, coal storage and my assuption was that a coal fired boiler was in there as well.
I would describe that as a corbelled hearth base support. can't see all the details from below, but it is probably supported back into the foundation for the whole unit so as to separate that mass and heat from the movement of the wood members of the house moderately.
For the patch, I would peel that existing surrond frame and set subfloor and new piece-in flooring to match
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Yep, my old house has them under both first-floor hearths.
Yeah, but what's the arch/vault good for? Why not just lay the brick flat?
I think what you found is the bottom of an old fireplace, with the bricks laid so as to be "decorative". Chances are that at one time, the design extended out to form a hearth. Save a few nice photos for history...