Opening up a fireplace

[roebuck86]

Hi all,

I'm a complete newbie to the forums and DIY.

I'm in the process doing a little renovation to a old house. In the living room I took the old fire surround out which revealed a bit of a mess and in the process I set free a number of spiders *shiver*. The small channel to the right of the fireplace contains an old gas pipe (I think)

Untitled

• roebuck86
• 1 Jan 2013
• 1

I'd like to open this up to a similar size to this image, and use it for a very similar purpose:

Untitled

• roebuck86
• 1 Jan 2013
• 1

Any advice on the best way to open the fireplace up and make it suitable for electric equipment would be hugely appreciated!

 

[dann09]

Presumably, you've read the previous post to your post, ref. opening up a c/breast?
Also research the mass of info. on this forum regarding opening up and using c/breast space.
If you still have difficulties come back on here.
First and foremost, you should know exactly what you intend before you do anything further.