Feature Fire Place

I had recently renovated a terrace house and removed a monster chimney breast to make our tiny front room a little bigger. Unfortunately removing the chimney removed a little character too.
My plan was to create a feature wall to house both the fire and tv and create a focal point in the living room.
My girlfriend and I had seen some tiles at our local tile showroom made fro limestone that were a small fortune but looked really cool, surely I could make something similar for free at work?
I am lucky enough to be a technology teacher with a stock room full of old second hand timber that's been laying around for years. Soi set about trying replicate the something similar to the tiles we had seen.

Using a cardboard template I marked out the shape of the fire place on the floor. Using the template I created some curved pieces of plywood (school freebie) which formed the main struts. I then used timbers the create the rest of the frame. I left two recesses, one for the TV and one for the fire.

I skinned the frame with hardboard which was fastened with screws and pins.

I spent all my spare school time crafting the wooden tiles, each tile was cut with a band saw and sanded to create a smooth curve. I stuck the tiles using liquid nail in silicon style tubes.

Before framing out the fire place I cut a channel and plastered into the wall all the cable for the TV.

Living in an old house meant that nothing much is level or square and some cutting and shaping was required to get all the tiles to match up, especially around the coving.
We are really pleased with the finished fire place and have had some great comments from everyone who has seen it.

Hope you enjoy the instructable.