Good, warm Fire! [Not the scary bad kind.]

For the past few days Bob and I have worked painting the drywall that was replaced when the box for the stove went into the ceiling.Nicholasville Paint did an awesome job of matching the paint. I brought in a piece of the cut out drywall and they matched it without knowing brand or formula.

We are messy painters, so I taped and covered things well and Bob got on the ladder and did the painting. It was a bit precarious because the ladder had two legs on the hearth and two legs on a sort of nailed together platform that sat next to the hearth.

 We painted on two different days and then removed the draping and tape, washed the stove pipe and box which had drywall mud and hand prints and bits of paint, etc.

Finally installed. After all this time and going through a few different installers, it is finally ready to use. But, alas, we had to go home.

So, today, we fired it up. It takes such a tiny bit of wood to make a good fire. We used just a bit and before we knew it the internal temperature was at the magic number of 500 degrees, so we engaged the catalytic converter. It is supposed to burn most of the smoke so you don't see much at all outside the house and just a bit of wood gives the maximum amount of heat.

The soapstone adsorbed the heat and was radiating nicely. It felt great. We still have to install the trim around the ceiling box [you can see it laying on the hearth] but that is for another day. Today we cleaned the whole upstairs. Carpet comes on Monday.

It was a great day!

Take care,
Jill