Hello we have just bought a house, and we would like to open our fireplace to have more space around the log burner, I took out the fire this weekend and hacked off some of the plaster around with a SDS drill, we want to open up by about 6 inches each side, but im concerned it will be to wide for the chimney breast. Please see the picture below and if somebody can advise what I should do that would be amazing.
My concern is that if I hit the bricks down on each side this will go through the chimney breast, or at least the first skin.