The HEARTH WALL Kitchen
Imagine this beautiful hand laid brick kitchen arch, complete with G.E. range, tile backwall, raised panel oak cabinets, and antique pewter color hardware, all included in our "French Bistro" design collection.
This design can be utilized with oak, maple or cherry cabinetry.
Material Options: Natural Granite, G.E. Appliances
This dynamic kitchen offers a center island which is the focal point of this room. Check with the designers at Builder's Network on the many available center island designs available to you.
The new dry-stacked brick oven is complete and being used/tested. I purchased 2 bags of Rutland #601 and cast a 28" x 24" slightly arched slab for the ceiling of the new oven. The new oven has a hearth of standard firebrick, and the ceiling slab is set on top of double layer walls of some generic soft/sandy brick to give a chamber 17" wide and 26" deep and ~9" high. There is a second layer of brick (double walls, and one layer on top of the ceiling slab) to add mass. I have fired it to > 650 F twice and there is no evidence of cracking. When I first fired it, I did so gently, but the slab and bricks were wet and it took some hours to dry out, and the ceiling slab was actually sizzling with water being drive to the upper side and boiling, but nothing has cracked.
A note about wood consumption. For the second firing, with the bricks dried out, I used only 2 pieces of oak 24" long and about 4" square (cut and split to smaller chunks) to reach the (too hot) 600+ F temperature in about 2 hours.

The 1-hour Brick Oven
This is the brick oven for those who wake up Saturday morning and think "It would be nice to have a brick-oven calzone for dinner". Nothing is set in mortar; nothing is going to have to be jack-hammered out of your backyard if you change your mind; and it really works! What it lacks in aesthetics it more than makes up for in (nearly) instant gratification. The longest part of the process is waiting for the fire to heat things up. If you just want to experiment with some personal pizzas, calzones, baked potatoes, this is for you.
I got inspired with the Brick Oven Pages (that's where you'll find nice brick ovens). Not sure where to put such a permanent oven as I had seen on the Brick Oven Pages, I recalled an architectural coffee-table book about some region of Italy (I think) where the people have, for generations, disassembled the unmortared stone houses - converting them into stone walls when the tax collector was coming - and reassembling when the taxman was gone. That sounded just right for my indecision. I had an assortment of masonry pieces at the back of my field and figured it was worth a try. What is needed is a chamber for the fire and food, and a mass of masonry to store the heat. A chamber without laying up a vaulted dome seemed like a quick and cheesy approach. The "design" is based on a single 6"x10" red clay flue-liner as the chamber, and a pile of fairly ordinary bricks to add mass. There is no chimney and no door. It is set on a base of ordinary cement blocks with one layer of colored (not necessary) cement pavers (~2.25"x8"x16").