A fireplace is the other thing in an open-plan room that everybody looks at. When the kitchen changes, a 1980s brick or marble-tile surround suddenly reads as the oldest thing in the house — and it is usually a two- or three-day job to fix, often out of stone we are already cutting for your counters.
Cut from the same slab as your kitchen
If your countertops are being replaced, the surround is the cheapest it will ever be: the remnant from your kitchen slab covers most fireplace faces and hearths. The room then reads as one specification instead of two — the same stone at the counter and at the fire, which is a designer move that costs almost nothing when the timing lines up.
What we build
- Slab surrounds and hearths in quartz, granite, natural stone or porcelain
- Tile surrounds — herringbone, stacked, zellige, large-format porcelain
- Full-height treatments running to the ceiling, which suit a vaulted room
- Mantels, floating or supported, in wood to match your cabinetry
- Flanking built-ins — bookcases, cabinets or a media wall either side, from the same cabinet lines as the kitchen
Heat, clearance and honest limits
Materials and clearances around a firebox are governed by the appliance manufacturer and the code, particularly for a mantel projecting over the opening and for combustible material near a gas insert. We build to those clearances and will tell you when a chosen material or mantel depth is not allowed where you want it.
We resurface and finish fireplaces. We do not build or reline chimneys, service gas appliances or install fireboxes — that work belongs to the specialists who do it every day, and we will say so rather than take it on.
When to do it
Alongside a kitchen remodel or a whole-room project, while the slab and the crew are already here. On its own it is still a short job: template, fabricate, install, usually inside the same week as any other countertop work.
Free in-home look and a written price, same as everything else we quote.
