Prop Project: The Fully Applianced Fireplace

[Lydia]

This is the old fashioned fireplace that would originally have been used for real, honest-to-goodness cooking.  To identify it further, I think it best to quote mscbryk's write-up on this fireplace, taken from another topic:

my vote for favorite reappearing fireplace must go to the one we first see in laura collins' cottage in 1966.
when that set first appears as the home of matthew morgan i believe it actually had some sort of functioning kitchen appliances.definitely a sink with running water.however once the show goes supernatural,like the dear and soon to be departed collinwood kitchen and the diner set,eating goes out of style and the cottage gets a make-over sans kitchen.
here it gets that little side cabinet to the upper right and a lower storage arch for logs.it turns up all over 1795 before making a nice home at professor stokes' pad.there it stays unless the cottage set is used(chris jennings)where it's craftilly reassembled.i forget where it turns up next.

In the same topic, our Willie Loomis noted some other places it was seen:

reverand trask's room
angelique's room (?) 1795.
hotel sitting room when josette and natalie were fleeing collinwood

I myself was amused that Reverend Trask's room in 1795 had this fireplace, because it suggested to me that he was being quartered in the kitchen.

Midnite kindly provided a capture of the fireplace in Angelique's attic room:

Episode #0389

But this appears to be a smaller version than what was seen in Reverend Trask's room.

Anyway, my usual questions about props apply.  Was this a real fireplace, or was it a styrofoam construction?  I can't see any collectables being made related to this fireplace, but then I'm not a professional tchotchke designer.

[Lydia]

In episode 636, which I watched this morning for the Watching Project, there's a reasonably good look at this fireplace, with the attached oven to the right of it, in Stokes's living room.  I learned at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, that on baking day a housewife would heat up the oven very hot in the morning and bake the stuff that needed a high temperature setting, and then as the oven cooled down over the course of the day, she would bake the stuff that needed lower temperatures.  Since I hate to cook, I can't remember what the baking order was.  Has anybody here ever tried using an oven like that?  And do you think Stokes ever used this fireplace to toast marshmallows?  No, I daresay he'd be more likely to use the fire to melt cheese, and in the morning the cleaning lady would be stuck with the job of scraping splotches of burnt cheese out of the fireplace.

It seems to me that when Reverend Trask had the fireplace in 1795, there were more utensils hanging from it - a shovel for ashes? a bedwarmer maybe? - but my memory may be deceiving me.

[Lydia]

Episode 637 shows, in Jeff's room in 1968, the fireplace as it was seen in Angelique's 1795 attic room, without the attached oven.  We get a camera shot looking through the fireplace at Jeff and Vicky, similar to a shot that I vaguely remember looking through Angelique's fireplace at her creating a potion.  This leads me to believe that this see-through fireplace is not the same as the fireplace that has the attached oven, because I don't remember ever seeing a camera shot looking through the oven-accoutred fireplace.  But I'm not sure.

I believe that the set used for Jeff's room is the same set that is used for Stokes's living room, which is shown in the previous episode, so I'm happily imagining the crew rolling fireplaces around on dollies, or else just sort of batting the fireplaces around if they're made of styrofoam.

[MagnusTrask]

Was some furniture made of styrofoam?   Do we know this?

[Lydia]

I believe the tombstones were made of styrofoam.  The fireplaces might be made of wood if they were fake, I suppose.  There was a brick wall in the Old House basement that swayed in a very unbricklike way once, in episode 250 if I remember correctly.

[Doug]

Just like in Ep. 423 when Lt. Forbes is trying to get inside the Old House. When he is shaking the front door, the brick wall on the right of it is also shaking.

[alwaysdavid]

The backs of some fireplaces were probably removable to be able to shoot across the gas flame logs to the person sitting in front of the fire .  I wonder if they used the same gas logs for all the fireplaces or they had more than one. I can recall even as a child that they were not lighting a real fire except when someone would throw a paper into the gas logs and it would really smoke up.

[fridfreak]

I never understood those fireplaces..no matter how long a room was unoccupied there was always some fire going on in one of those magical fireplaces.  I only witnessed Ben Stokes "light one" in one episode and he was only setting firelogs down but really he was simply kneeling by the fireplace. [spoiler]The Old House was unoccupied after Barnabas was cursed and when Josette enters into her bedroom at the end of the Leviathan Story there's the old fire going.[/spoiler] They must have had some type of magical powers those fireplaces.  But the supernatural was what made DS so special.

[fridfreak]

I think I messed up on the spoiler icon.  Sorry ya'all.  I'll get it soon.  It must be the heat from all those magical fireplace fires.   

[Midnite]

It's no problem, fridfreak.  The Sp button over the response window puts the tags into your post-- the starting code and corresponding end code (with the slash) must be complete and in that order-- and you can add your actual spoiler between them.  Then you can check your post using the Preview feature and the Modify feature to edit if necessary, both as many times as needed, and the latter as long as a couple of minutes haven't gone by between submitting the post or changes.

[fridfreak]

Thanks Midnite.  I'll get in the habit of previewing too before I post!   

[Lydia]

They must have had some type of magical powers those fireplaces.

No wonder Barnabas never wanted to bring electricity into the Old House.  Who needs electricity when you've got magic fireplaces?

The base of the fireplace in Amy's bedroom at Collinwood looked like the base of the fireplaces I've been talking about in this topic.  I'm therefore leaning towards the theory that all three fireplaces - Amy's, the one with the oven attached, and the one in Angelique's attic room - are the same fireplace.  Angelique's is the basic model.  The oven, when the fireplace was wanted for other sets, could be attached to the fireplace with chewing gum or duct tape or something, and a then special top would have been built for the fireplace in Amy's room.

But I'll probably change my mind next week.

[Lydia]

This fireplace was seen in episode 810, when Quentin and Magda were visiting the ailing baby Lenore.