Mehr Fireplace

Every now and then a project lands on your lap that to put it simply, is a pleasure to work on.

I am shown a hand drawn sketch by my client and asked to match it as close as I can. I take it home and figure out the proportions working with the area I have in the room and the height and breadth of the wall space. Using a rough Golden ratio set of proportions we were able to size this great feature harmoniously with the space of the whole room. The mandate was to take my time and do a nice job, and we did!

The stone came from Squamish BC, a Jasmine Basalt Thin stone, a lighter version of the fantastic columns that are found in that region, and one of the many aspects one can harvest off of these pieces. I have laid tons of this rock in actual full bedded stone back in my Whistler years and the challenge was to lay it so that it looked like thick stone right the way through, not easy with most thin stone products. The great thing about this stuff is that it is strong and thick enough to take a good bit of chipping with the brick hammer, even the corners, allowing me to give it that hewn look around the aris edges.

The builder (Peter Vandergaag Construction), was challenged with framing the project as close to the drawings as possible, and they nailed it bang on, great crew, as well as making the massive mantle and 6 shelves coming out of the chimney. Finding the hearth pieces in the sizes we were looking for was the next challenge, and eventually we found some nice Cambrian Sandstone to do the job. The only 3 pieces available in the whole of the North were loaded into my truck and taken to my barn shop on a balmy -5 day and nervously crafted into the 2 rounded main hearth pieces and end caps. There was no room for error as there was no more of this particular stone available, and chiseling the narrow end pieces that tapered and faded out by the end of the fireplace shoulders, left me with a couple more grey hairs by the end of the day. All went well in the end and the icing was finally applied to the cake!!! Thanks again Loretta and Mike for the opportunity, and Peter and the crew for greasing the rails on this one! Simply tap the picture to move through slide show.