What the heck is a pot crane, you might ask.  I didn’t know either, except that I had these two round brackets in the fireplace where something used to be.  After scanning the Historic Housefitters website for other accoutrements for the house, I saw the pot crane and realized we just have to have one.  If for no rhyme or reason other than to sit in the brackets that were already embedded in the stone walls of the fireplace, just waiting for something to fit there.

It was a bit of a process.  Historic Housefitters has ready made pot cranes in standard sizes.  Who knew there could be such an unfulfilled need that they come in standard sizes.  But not much in this house comes in a standard size.  So I called the company, explained my dilemma and got  a lesson in pot crane lingo at the same time.  The round brackets in my fireplace are called gudgeons, and the pot crane, would be made with a 30″ swing arm attached to a riveted post joined by mortise and tenon.

We measured and re-measured and looked at the scaled drawings that Historic Housefitters created.  Finally, we said “yes.”  I waited impatiently for the package to arrive, holding my breath, wondering if it would fit.

A triangular looking packaged showed up at the door, looking much smaller than what I had envisioned.  We opened it up and I continued to hold by breath while Chris raised the top tenon into the the top gudgeon, aligned the bottom tenon with the bottom gudgeon and let it fall in to place.  A perfect fit!

Then it needed something to hang from the pot crane — like a pot.  I have an old copper pot, not of cooking quality, but attractive none-the-less.  It makes the fireplace look like we’re ready to stir up a pot of stew.  The next step will be getting a cast iron Lodge pot that we can actually use, hanging it from the crane and stoking up a fire.

In the meantime, the wrought iron pot crane and shiny copper pot add a little colonial bling (if there is such a thing), to our awesome fireplace.