I was going to leave the chimney in bedroom as a shelving space when we renovated but glad we didn’t. The builders had it down in under a day and all cleaned out and roof patched. Not sure of coat as it was wrapped in with rest of works.

I had a similar chimney in the kitchen. I pulled it out over a weekend. They take up so much space for a small amount of character benefit. Does the chimney breast construction end at the ceiling? A lot do and then go to a smallish pipe. This won’t offer any extraction benefits and the gunk will build up adding to the aged amount that is probably already there. It is a cutie patootie original oven though.

Agree with Bree W, it is a crapped space with no room for setting down utensils etc. Also if occupants are tall, they would be head height to mantle and have to bend over the cook top if cooking on stove. Move the cooktop/oven to another place and have, as an example, a bench for a coffee/tea station with built in drawers.

There are beautiful example photos of ovens in chimney breast. But for your situation the space is very low, and is just not ergonomically friendly for a cooktop.

If you want the character of the oven in the chimney I would get a builder to check out raising the height of the opening and installing a range hood within the space, you would need to consider a shelf height opening.

Thanks everyone for your comments and advice. It’s all incredibly helpful. We will move the stove/cooktop to another spot and convert this area to another appliance space - add a bench with drawers underneath (as Bree suggested). Update tiling too. Too big a job to remove chimney as it’s a double story house and it would impact 3 rooms.

The tiles are generally over some sort of stone/brickwork base. It will require repair before retiling which will add dollars and difficulty. Will you be removing and retiling yourself as a DIY? If not, make sure you have a tradie lined up for the rectification works before you finalise plans or start demo. It may be hard to find someone to do the work and it’s no fun living with a job 1/2 done.

Thanks for the tip, we plan to get a tradie to do the work as part of a bigger building project. This gives me a feel for what we need to consider so appreciate your comment

Character aside the chimneys are really silly waste of space if not for a fire. I would not want to do all of the kitchen to something really lovely and have a substandard space left just because it it is there. Hence my suggestion is to remove it altogether. Then you can design a real kitchen, with cook top and range hood (vented to outside as it needs to be now), wall oven (so no bending, twisting straining knees, hips while balancing) and space for everything you need! Using the space as best as you can. Can we see a plan of the space and the rooms beside it too please? Happy to make suggestions on that. Cheers Margot