Keeping warm

Okay, so I know no one is thinking about keeping warm right now.However its been on Tony's mind for quite a while now. After several years of thinking about it and drooling over friends stoves we finally bit the bullet and got a Buck wood burning stove insert. It is a full wood burning stove but it fits back into the fireplace so only about 8" of it still sticks out. This turned out to be quite a big project. In order to have it installed we had to extend the hearth about 12" to meet the code. This meant chopping out a perfectly good section of red oak floor. SCARY!!!! Tony picked out tile ( he really is good at those things) and then measured the hearth and removed the floor. You can see his gorgeous finished work in the photo. He also saved some strips of flooring and took them to the ever talented Mr. Talbert and had him shape them for edging around the whole hearth. They turned out perfect!

We were then much too eager to fire this puppy up. It was going to be in the 50's at night so we decided this was our chance before the summer set in.(Remember I am a procrastinator so this post really is from April or May)  Let me just say, I hope that it is really cold this winter or else we might possibly melt into puddles on our living room floor. It rapidly heats up the downstairs to a mind blowing 80-85 degrees without much effort!!! If you drive by or visit in January you may find us with our windows and doors thrown open and our skivvies on. We will have to work on controlling the fire as we get used to this new super furnace. We hope to be able to heat the majority of our home for the colder months. Pipe dream? I don't know yet. I'll get back to you.

You may be asking yourself ," Well that sounds nice and all but where are you going to get all that wood"?

Just so happens that Great Grandma Z. needed a tree taken out and Tony jumped at the chance to load up our wood stores. Mutually beneficial. It took a good 3 day weekend, a log splitter, a chainsaw and lots of hard work . I have to say I was a little smitten with my sweaty lumberjack that weekend.

So here is our winter stash that is taking over our driveway. Hopefully we will get it moved to the permanent woodpile by the end of the summer.