The living room came with an MDF fireplace. The house is Edwardian. They did not belong together.

A reclaimed oak surround was what the room needed — and one turned up on eBay, 10 miles away, from a seller who was doing exactly what I was doing: updating their home. It came out of their house and went into ours.

The process of preparing a reclaimed surround for installation takes more care than fitting something new — cleaning it back, checking the condition of the wood, getting the fitting right so it sits flush and level. But the result is a fireplace with genuine character, one that actually belongs in the room it is in. The Edwardian living room got the centrepiece it deserved.