Laying laminate over concrete fireplace hearth

[merlin34]

My wife and I have sanded off the stained varnish from our pine paraquet floor and applied a clear varnish back on to make the room lighter. We also in the process had our old gas fire taken out, leaving the original concrete hearth. We now want to put some laminate flooring over this area (only about 0.8M2) to hide this area. We need to lower the hearth as it projects a few mm above the existing floor. Is it a case of just using brute force with a steel chisel and a lump hammer and finishing off with a leveling compound? Any suggestions?

 

[Symptoms]

Why laminate? Juxtaposing this next to your pine paraquet floor might, in my opinion, look tacky. Assuming the chimney breast is still in place, make a proper feature of the hearth by laying either a decent bit of timber down or obtain a lump of stone (slate, limestone, marble, or even granite). You'll be suprised at how cheap a stone off-cut will be at your local stone yard (check Yellow Pages for granite worktops).

 

[merlin34]

We had a piece of slate in front of the existing gas fire but removed it when we took the fire out. It has made the area much larger which we prefer, the other problem, if you can call it that, is there is a gas pipe running in front of the chimney breast which we intend to box in and run an electrical cable to fit a double power socket on the other side of the chimney breast. We have already purchased the laminate as it is a very good match surprisingly enough!
If we do get fed up with the laminate we could always go back to having the slate back in!
Thanks for your suggestion though.