This Green House

Most people would demo a chimney and fireplace and be done with it.  Not me!  I went for the piece-by-piece method with the chimney and uncovered a cool bake oven in the process!  Masonry ovens have been built in American homes since the first colonists landed here.  Oven traditions date back much farther – to at least Roman times.  And for me, uncovering a historical cooking “utensil” is sacred work.

By methodically uncovering the fireplace oven I’ve been able to study the mason work of the oven dome.  You have to respect that kind of craftsmanship.   Old American Houses and How to Restore Them,  a book  by Henry Williams, gives a detailed description of how the oven was built.  “It is said that this dome was constructed  of  rectangular bricks by first filling the bottom of the oven with wet sand and molding it to shape.  Bricks, well mortared, were laid over the sand and left to set.  Then the sand was taken out.”

Makes me wonder about the breads baked in it; how they were prepared and, of course, what I would cook.  One of the photos I took of the oven includes an old photograph of the original fireplace.  Life was simple then.  Not a coffee maker in sight!

“One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.” Vincent van Gogh

So the fireplace is still present… even if only for a short time.  I hope to get at it again this coming weekend.  Changes are happening and the design center is still moving forward.  The new cabinets have been ordered for the kitchen set ups and should be here the beginning of November.