After I excitedly told you about my new pot rack, I promised to “fill you in” (ahahaha) as to what we did to “fill in” (ahaha) the ugly hole.

This is what it looked like before:

And this is what it looks like now:

A close- up:

Quite a while ago, Stan found me this pretty old heat grate at a salvage shop. He spent hours stripping about 30 layers of gunky paint from it, then spray painted it. He also got a piece of thin plywood, cut it to size, and spray painted it silver to go behind the grate. Then he screwed both of them into the chimney with masonry screws while I took a nap. It was wonderful. I tried to paint the blue masonry screws, but it looks like they may need another coat. Oh and that yellow stuff in the “before” picture is Great Stuff- just a spray insulation foam, since the ugly hole pretty much opens to the outside.

No more ugly hole!