Chim~Chimin~ey!

Myself and the fella bought a chiminea the other weekend. We have wanted one for a long time, but couldn't decide between terracotta or metal.

In the end we went for terracotta.

I think the terracotta ones look so much more authentic & have some awesome patterns on. Mostly aboriginal looking.

The only downfall with terracotta is sometime you hear about them cracking and then completely smashing. But like anything in life, as long as you look after them well and prepare them right, you should be on the right path to having them for quite a long time.

We got our one in the sale from Notcutt's. We also have one of their Sage cards that gives you 10% off permanently. Instead of the chiminea being over £60, we got it for about £30. Perfect.

^Our new chiminea^

As we are having our chiminea on the decking, we thought it wise that we put it on a concrete slab, even though it has a metal stand, because lets be honest we don't want to be burning the decking down! Great timing as the Mr's Dad is doing up his garden & had a spare slab. :)

With our chiminea, we had to 'cure' it before use. This basically means it shouldn't break on us when we then use it:

Firstly,
*A layer of sand at the bottom, as this burns the fire out, also you use it to put the fire out too. No water!
*Then you are meant to put a layer of kindling... But we forgot the kindling... Ooops. 
*So we put newspaper down,
*Then two firelighters,
*One fire log.
Do you think it would light? Nope! Lol. All the newspaper did. Ha. 
We just left it for the next day, where I used cardboard instead of newspaper & it worked. Yay! :D

Shame its raining today, as we were planning to have tapas in the garden this evening with the chiminea going...

Do any of you have a chiminea?
If so, metal or terracotta?

Kate

XxX
ps other pictures from Bing search engine.