Remodeling - Fireplace

The fireplace in the condo was a wood burning fireplace, which while functional, wasn't very practical.  There wasn't a real good place to store firewood, so we were kind of limited to those Duraflame kind of logs.  It also had this ledge kind of thing where the hearth was floating off the floor.  So very 70's.  At a minimum, we wanted to put some type of stone on the wall.  

We visited a local fireplace store to look at our options.  If we wanted an insert, we'd have to fit it inside the existing fireplace, making it a very small window.  Otherwise, we were looking at tearing out the fireplace.  Ideally, we'd like a gas fireplace, but there was no natural gas service to the condo.  

We went back and forth on this quite awhile.  We had the stone picked out quite quickly, but we were waffling about running gas.  We finally decided to take the plunge and do the whole thing.  The first task was to run the gas line.  

The condo is about 5 feet below street level and the gas main was on the other side of the street.  When the engineer from the gas company came out, he noticed that the gas main would have to go under the deck in the front of the house, which was against code.  In order to run the gas line, I would have to pull out the deck.  

One Sunday in May, I pulled out half of the deck.  (The lumber used on that side of the deck was relatively new, so I listed it for free on OfferUp and somebody came and got it within a day.  Didn't even have to pay for disposal.)  

Then the gas line had to be run and a meter installed.  Through the gravel soil and underneath the water feature and up the hill and under the street.  They used a mole to do most of the work, but at the end by the condo, it had to be dug by hand.  We felt sorry for the guys.  

After that, the plumbers had to run the new gas line to the opposite end of the condo.  Luckily, it was easy access underneath the house and through the garage.  Then they had to remove the old firebox and install a new one.  

It was about then we figured we should order the stone for the fireplace.  Floor & Decor had pallets of the stuff when we were there the last time.  We needed about 10 boxes of the stone and 17 corner pieces.  When we got there, they had plenty of stone, but only 15 corner pieces.  More was on order from China, though, delivery was not expected until July.  

We then had to pick out a hearthstone.  We found one at a local stonemason that would do the trick.  We also had to determine what to do about a mantle.  

At our old house, we had a large slab of redwood burl that we picked up on a trip to Northern California about 15 years before.  After we moved it, we couldn't find the right location to hang it, so we put off that decision.  Then, we started looking at it and determined that if we cut it just right, we could make a few live-edge shelves out of it. It needed some prep work, since it had a few knot holes.  Our contractor made a few cuts, I filled in some holes with epoxy, and we had our "mantle".  We used the floor protector to mock up the placement of the shelves on the wall.  

Finally, while we were heading out of town for a summer trip, we got word that the stone corners were in.  Our contractor had some immediate availability, so he got the stone and had most of the job done while we were out of town.  We couldn't have been happier with the results.