In my front room I have a large open fireplace (5ft high, 4ft wide, 3ft deep). I have built the base of the fireplace up about 1foot off the floor, and I'm now about to finish it off with a tiled base using slate tiles, but I have a couple questions first...
- How to fill in behind the raised bit? I thought of filling as much of it in with rubble and old bricks as possible, putting down a layer of compacted sand to even it up, then laying a couple inches of cement to provide a solid base upon which I will lay the tiles. Does this sound OK? What sort of sand/cement mix would be best suited?
- I'm going to need a tile cutter. For this job alone I could probably get away with a score and snap type of cutter, but I'm also planning on tiling the bathroom soon so though I'd invest in an electric one (christmas pressie to myself). Is the £30 from screwfix any good? B&Q do a similarly priced one made by PlasPlugs iirc, what about that one?
BTW, the fireplace will never actually have a real fire in it, but will most likely have some form of wood burning stove at some point in the future.