Making fireplace wider

[Bubbauk]

Hey everyone, I am currently in the process of redoing my living room and original plan was just to have 3 devices for my av setup but now I have had a change of plans and now I need space for at least 5 or 6 so need to make my opening wider.

Here is an image showing what I was original going to do, but now I need to make this almost twice as wide, there is the room for it but I am not sure how to go about it, I dont think the fireplace is structural. It runs up the centre of the house, its not on an outside wall. I think I can just chisel out the extra to side but dont want to incase my house falls apart

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/1259/image509.jpg

If you need any more information then please ask.

Thanks for any information.

 

[big-all]

not that simple realy
you will need to expose the lintle probably need to involve building control and a good builder or structural engineer

 

[Bubbauk]

Well there goes that idea lol. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Bubbauk]

Ok, I have had another idea. I want to build 2 av cabinets, one for either side of the fireplace, I will also be building a stud wall in front of the fireplace to bring it out level with these av cabinets, but cabling might be difficult, I know I could run it through the stud wall but then adding cable in the future wouldnt be the easiest.

So heres my idea, I was considering boring a big hole from the left to right side of the fireplace and put some tubing right through to run all the cables, maybe something pvc guttering downpipe with a t joint in the middle which then goes up and comes out just above the tv mount for my hdmi and power? I think this might be too big though.

Is this overkill and I am over thinking this? This just seems to be straight forward altough will these huge holes cause structural problems, especially above the tv bracket as there will be a 50" plasma just below it?

I know I will have to hire a good drill to bore these holes although I might be able to borrow one.

Thanks for the help.

 

[big-all]

dont make it difficult plan your sheves say 25mm in front off the breast you can then use 12mm mdf accross from the side shelves accross the brick to the centre
this will allow a 12mm gap infront off the brick as a cable route

 

[Bubbauk]

I wont be putting any shelfs in front of the fireplace, they will be at either side so will need to run cable from left to right to connect my amps etc together plus I want to have access to run cables in the future so if I had a pipe running through from left to right I could run cables through in the future.