Stone House Kachelofen – Page 2

December 18, 2019December 18, 2019

Victorian Kachelofen Project, part 1

Earlier this year we completed the most ambitious project we’ve ever done, from both a design and logistical perspective! The project was to create a kachelofen/pizza oven/open fireplace unit in a Victorian home.

Designing the unit required a site visit to get a sense of any architectural features that we could include. Several rooms in the house have raised wooden panels with delicate beading. These seemed like the perfect pattern to base our standard kacheln on. We ended up rotating the pattern vertically to better suit the project.

Raised paneling found in other parts of the house

We also matched several other elements of our design to existing house parts.

One of our favourite elements is the doric column pattern that we used for the fireplace.

One of the stated goals of the project was to make something that felt like it belonged in a heritage building. Renovations were still ongoing when we completed our part of the project. We can’t wait to see photographs once the rest of the job is complete!

Open fireplace as seen from the living room.

May 17, 2019May 17, 2019

An Old Oven with a New Home

This Kachelofen is named “Oven of Fire and Myth.” It was originally created in 2011. At that time Jessica was working as a production potter, but really wanted to build kachelöfen. She had no clients for any stoves. It was a long, hard road to find her first clients, as here in Canada nobody knows about kachelöfen.

Jessica wanted to show that kachelöfen can be works of art. She decided that one way to find potential clients was to exhibit stoves in public art galleries. She was able to secure a show at a public art gallery in Guelph. Jessica teamed up with well known Canadian artist Ryan Price. Ryan used the clay surface as a canvas for his drawings. He primarily used an underglaze pencil for the work.

Ryan and Jessica installing the oven at the MSAC

The Oven of Fire and Myth at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre

The oven was exhibited in two different public art galleries. It was originally shown at that the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre (now the Art Gallery of Guelph) here in Guelph in 2011. It was later part of a larger, solo exhibition at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in 2014.

Installing at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery

Oven of Fire and Myth at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery

This was a very important part of our development as creators and builders of kachelöfen, so when it finally found a permanent home last year we were absolutely thrilled!

The Oven in its final home!

February 26, 2019March 6, 2019

Thermal Photographs

We received a delightful email from a customer who made infrared images of one of our Kachelofen. The results are fascinating!

This is a side view of the unit. You can also see the outline of the front door to the immediate right of the oven.

The inner flue system of a Kachelofen is built with much thicker firebrick at the bottom than at the top. As the heat travels upwards through the oven, the firebrick becomes thinner and thinner. This is done so that the bottom heats up more slowly than the top. In theory this means that the entire surface of the unit heats up at a constant rate.

The outline of the firebox can be clearly seen at the bottom of this image.

Every oven will have a few “hotspots,” but the overall effect should be a thermal mass that radiates evenly and slowly. It’s so nice to see that effect in these photos!

This is what the oven looks like “normally!”

Thank you so much to Patrick and Karen for sending us these infrared images!

December 11, 2018January 10, 2019

Off to the Blue Ridge Mountains!

We’re off to the Blue Ridge Mountains this December to install a two-sided kachelofen in an historic century cabin. It all seems like an idyllic winter wonderland, and a perfect location for one of our stoves!

The main stove will be decorated with a traditional, hand drawn slip-trailed pattern. This is a photo of the pieces laid out on the floor of our studio:

The home owner decided to add another unit on the other side of the wall. The flue network will pass through a shared wall. This way two rooms can be heated with a single fire. Here are the bricks for the second oven laid out:

The concave shape of the “Schüsselkacheln” increases the radiant surface area of the bricks. This allows a slightly more compact oven design to radiate enough warmth for the area that needs to be heated.

The bucket of blue “wedgewood” glaze can be seen in the foreground of this photo. This was a wonderful glaze to work with. We work exclusively with Spectrum Glazes to achieve a wide range of results! Spectrum is a Canadian company that is a worldwide leader in glazing technology.

November 27, 2018January 10, 2019

We have a new name!

Designing and building kachelöfen has been the focus of Stonehouse Pottery for several years now. We’ve been so busy however, that we never quite clued in to the fact that our business name had become an anachronism!

For our 30th anniversary we’ve decided to fix it! We’re proud to say that we have a new identity. We are now Stone House Kachelöfen.

We worked with talented designer Gareth Lind to come up with a gorgeous new identity. A love of the work of Scottish designer and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh provided the starting point for the design. We adore the art nouveau feeling of this font (Xctasy Sans for those of you who are into fonts). We love Gareth’s attention to detail, and use of colour.

Our new wordmark and logo are wonderful:

This is what Gareth had to say about the ideas guiding the design:

Stacked words form the logo, just as stacked tiles form a kachelöfen. The key character – the Ö – is in orange, representing the door of the ofen. The umlaut is doubled to represent tiles and form a distinctive mark that is then used for social media and instances where you would like a more graphic look than the full wordmark.

We’ve got some big plans for 2019, and our new identity features prominently in them!