What to do with stove housing?

[Buster]

Hi guys and girls,

My partner and are in the process of buying our first home. We plan on doing as much of the renos as we can ourselves. Before we can move in we need to renovate the kitchen.

My question is what to do with the stove housing? The house is a high set queenslander and it has a housing for the old wood burner stove that sticks out from the kitchen wall.

I have spoken to a tradie friend who said "if it was me, I'd pull it off and clad the wall", but (and here is the problem) Mrs Buster wants to keep it to house our new stove to save some space in the kitchen , which isn't a bad idea, I just don't know how to go about it.

What do you guys think? Would I be better off to get rid of it or renovate the structure so as to house the new stove?

I will add a pic when I get a chance.

Buster

[Incoming!]

I had one of those in an old Queenslander a few years ago. It worked well, no problem, and with plenty of room either side of the stove for hiding stuff. I didn't have any ventilation at the time above the stove - whoever replaced the old woodburner removed the venting stack and just covered over the hole in the tin. If I had another place like that, I'd definitely instal an extractor. But apart from that, no worries - I really liked the extra space that it gave me.

[Buster]

Ok, so here are a couple of pics. The external one is obvious, the internal one you can see the recess that is seen from the outside.

[Buster]

Thanks for the quick reply Incoming.

Yeah, I can see the advantages, my main concern is that the wall faces west and even coming into winter you get some serious heat coming through to the inside. I plan to insulate the rest of the surrounding walls and ceiling so it would be a weak link if left as is.

[journeyman Mick]

I've turned a few of them into pantries when building new kitchens. This works better IMHO as the space is really too big for a modern stove and too hard to build everything into neatly.

Mick

[aaron.aafjes]

remove and build a bay window there and have some windows for light, use existing joists as floor area.... your wife will be stoked as my clients wives are always happy with this design....... very happy.

[Ivan in Oz]

How about Bench either side;
Shelving below.
and
Shelving above the Bench,
high enough above the bench, to make use of the bench,
but still have usable shelving [Pantry] space overhead?

Remember the Range Hood and a GPO [power point] for it.

[Incoming!]

remove and build a bay window there and have some windows for light, use existing joists as floor area.... .

Me like! I'll keep that idea in mind for the next time. Could be a nice little coffee alcove or kids dining area.

[Buster]

Thanks for the replies. Bay window idea sounds good, but the area in the kitchen is really needed for the new stove if I want to utilise the existing sink side for new sink (hooking in to existing plumbing)

[Jappa]

I used our existing chimney for our stove too. Here are the before and after. We removed the concrete lintle before we started

[RufflyRustic]

Hmm, at first I thought Pantry! Now I think it would indeed make a great stove area with storage on either side, a rangehood and most importantly, enough space either side to take pots off the stove safely, without knocking anything else off the stove.

cheers
Wendy

[womble]

you could always put another wood stove in there...good for winter