Something made us decide to get rid of the stone around our fireplace. Stage 1 started today, and I decided I would take a "before" shot... so here is that:

I went and bought an inexpensive hammer/drill at harborfreight and with it and Kai's help, it took less than two hours to get rid of the hearth part of fireplace. Now it looks like this:

Kai and I have loaded up hundreds of pounds of debris and are now off to find a place to dump it.

Later today/tonight, we're going to figure out how two short people are supposed to take the rest of stone off, starting from the top. OK, maybe it won't happen until tomorrow. Depends on how good the pain killers work.