    (The neatly-missing patches of plaster are the result of inquiries into materials and techniques.)  Meanwhile, down in the kitchen, this large open hearth holds a surprise.  It's called "squirrel tail" because the oven's flue (which is at its rear) curves back over the top of the oven like a squirrel's tail, feeding back into the fireplace flue, above mantel height. Though it's at a nice height for cooking, I don't know how they dealt with raking out the coals. Only thing I can figure is that since the oven is so large, they just left the coals in there while cooking, then pulled them out the next day after they went cold. Inside:
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