After work I crawled under the house to the crawlspace and began searching for the frozen pipe which only took about 30 minutes to locate...since there was an icicle on the side it made it pretty easy. So instead of recognizing that the pipe had ALREADY burst and that's the reason there was an ICICLE on the pipe I brought down the space heater to thaw it out. Note to everyone else...the ice acts like a plug...and if you're lucky enough to have the pipe plug itself DO NOT THAW THE PLUG! So needless to say about 10 minutes into the endeavor water began spraying everywhere and I was sitting there holding a space heater (bad). I then noticed a valve just upstream (good) from the break and figured I'd just shut the problem off right there. What I didn't know is the connection at the valve was weak so when I shut the valve the connection broke so even more water was spraying everywhere. Since I have the water authority on speed dial, within 10 minutes the city came out to shut the water off. Two days and many dollars later the pipes have been fixed and insulated.
Now, if you're still reading, it's time for the good news. Yesterday while trying to remove vinyl tile from the sheet of luan that's at the mantel I noticed how sticky the tile was. Not wanting to remove it all I figured I'd just take it off and flip it around. I then proceeded to damage the luan beyond repair and just ripped it off. For the rest of the story I'll just leave it to the pictures...
Here's what the fireplace used to look like...you can see the vinyl tile over the front.
Well the tile and luan are gone, but behind is some sheet metal with a hole cut out...looks like someone had a coal stove hooked up to this at some point...of course I had to see what was behind so I stuck my arm in...
Lucky me it's filled entirely with coal dust...5 buckets worth to be exact...so what's behind the sheet metal?
But first some more cleanup...
Starting to tear off the sheet metal...this was harder than it looks...do you see what's behind it?
The first view of the original cast iron surround which looks to be in perfect condition....but first...
a little...no I mean a lot of cleaning.
The final product after Sarah added some white paint around the surround. Sure beats that old vinyl tile and to just think it was just sitting there this whole time is crazy. Why someone felt the need to cover this up is beyond me...or paint the wood floors...or cover them with carpet...or...well you get the idea. This old house has had a couple surprises but nothing like this yet. Who knows what else we haven't uncovered yet?
