DIY question/project

I've finally decided that the bloody awful mantelpeace in our living room has hurt my eyes for long enough so I want to get rid of it but I'm not totally sure how to go about it. There is some of the work I should be able to do myself but some I know I'll need some help with... I just wanna know if I've thought of everything before I decide to do something about it..

Here is a picture of the offending disaster..



Like I said bloody awful lol.

I'm guessing a chisel that is made for doing concrete work plus a hammer can be used to get the bricks off the wall and dismantle the woodbox by smashing the morter.

I'm going to need to get a gas fitter to come in and take the heater off and crimp the gas pipes for me.. it's not running and its the only thing that was on gas.

It's going to need new gib and skirting board and new carpet. In the carpet area we have a massive off cut from when we did the rest of our house so that will be more than enough to fill that hole. I'll get a plasterer to come in and plaster the gib because I really can't be bothered with trying to do that myself.

The part I'm a bit dubious about is the tiles on the floor. Surely they aren't as fat as the wooden edging so it makes me wonder whats underneath the tiles.. I'm pretty sure its going to be concrete because the bottom of the woodbox is concrete and I wonder how on earth I'm going to deal with that (the rest of our floors are wooden). Any ideas?

That mantelpiece used to be a fireplace cause there is a chimney on the outside of the wall. Don't know why they changed it to ugly as gas heater.

Wow that sounds like a lot of work but I agree - yikes!

Could you take the top bit off the mantel so it's all one level and remove the woodbox and the wood skirting and then plaster it and paint it? You'd then have a later option to put a more modern gas heater in should you want to use it later.

It would make it look more modern at least without so much work and would eliminate the 'what if's' around the floor tiles.

I was going to ask if you would possibly change the ugly heater to a gas fireplace, but it looks like you have a heat pump already?

As for hiring someone to do the plastering, that is one of the easier things that you can do yourself, and will save you a bit of money for the huge bill that the gasfitters will cost!

I don't think that the concrete will be even underneath the tiles because there is no way the tiles are 10cm thick so they must be sitting on something.

The gas isn't connected cause of the heat pump which is awesome so its just a dust gatherer and eye sore

hehe not brave so much, but its pissed me off the entire time we have lived here cause its so bloody ugly.

FIL and MIL have had a fair bit of experience in DIY so they would help us a bit so at least its not just me doing it (DH isn't so handy lol)

We did think about adding concrete on to the top like KateP did, but because it's going to be a high traffic area (becomes part of the lounge), the likelihood that the concrete we put on would just pop off, or crumble, was high - which is why we took out the whole thing and put in the frame.