Recycling from the strangest places: Fireplaces !

Ey up my faithful blogworms, a quick catch up this week on an earlier blog. 
We are going down to London next week to install a solid Walnut Eco Elite kitchen so I'll be unable to post blogs for the next couple of weeks .... will you miss me ???

Anyway, back to the plot, I posted an earlier blog about this kitchen and felt it was worth showing you these pics this week.

This shows just how recycling something can come from the strangest places !!

When we installed this kitchen, we opened up a fireplace to put the cooker in, making it central and essential to the success of this kitchen.
We saved the old fireplace surround simply because it was too good to chuck in a skip, really with no idea, at that stage, of what we could use it for. The plot thickens !!

After staring at it for a while, the thought occured "what would it look like sat on the worktops back on the chimney breast". Chimney breast overmantles are not a new idea but using the old fireplace surround was something we'd never thought of up to this point !!

The decision was made and back up it went just to have a look.

Suffice it to say, our customers said "leave there and we'll think about it ". So we did. 

Now, when the decorator arrived we all agreed to slap a coat of paint on it, the same colour as the unit doors and ........ Voila ! possibly the most unusual overmantle certainly that I've ever fitted.   

It just goes to prove what I've always said that a lot of kitchens we've fitted have a habit of organically evolving as we're fitting them. It pays to keep an open mind !

Once the thing was painted, a lot of the visual weight disappeared and we all agree that it looks fab re-purposed and re-used. Re-using the surround and tiling in the recess with a good period colour tile, there is now more than just a nod to the house's Victorian heritage while sitting comfortably within a modern kitchen.

In't recycling marvellous ??? You be the judge !

Jules