There’s This Weird Circle in My Kitchen Wall…
April 8, 2025
Source: Reddit
Alright, so we need to have a word about this thing that’s been plaguing me ever since I moved into my apartment — a strange, ever so slightly raised, perfectly round circle on the wall right next to my stove. Not large, perhaps 7 inches across. About a thousand times it was painted over. I initially assumed it was some slack patchwork or a botched attempt at covering…I don’t know, something cursed?
It wasn’t until one day I actually looked at it — I mean really looked — that I noticed it wasn’t merely a random blob. There’s this patterned edge, sort of decorative. Like someone intentionally tried to make it look nice… sometime before Netflix was invented.
Long story short? It’s an old stove pipe cover. And it’s sorta thrilling if you know the full story.
The Good Ol’ Days of Coal, Soot and Stove Pipes
Back then, during the 1800s and early 1900s — yes, that long ago — people didn’t have central heating to keep cozy or gas stoves with a nifty click-and-light feature. Nope. You wanted heat, or a hot meal? You started a fire in a coal or wood-burning stove.
Those stoves would have these long metal tubes (stovepipes, of course) that carried smoke out through a wall, or up into a chimney. Very clever, but as soon as homes were modernized and the stoves pulled out, there was just this hole in the wall. Not a great look.
Enter: the stove pipe cover. A small round metal disk, decorative, to cover the hole, to hide it. Quick fix, low effort. My kind of project, honestly.
Mine’s Been Through Some Things
I currently live in an extremely old apartment building — the type of “once-grand-but-now-it’s-mostly-dust” charm. I’m sure my kitchen has borne witness to things. The stove pipe cover remains, and by god, it has been repainted so much it’s wearing a puffy coat of latex. You can even see a faint outline where someone clearly had picked it up at some point and just…smeared on extra paint and called it a day.
I gave it a couple knocks, just to be certain. It’s metal, for sure. Cold to the touch. Most likely tin or steel beneath that paint. And empty behind it, which was probably used to be an opening since it was a vent. I haven’t had the courage to take it off yet, but I am somewhat curious what is behind there. Hopefully not a raccoon.
Should You Keep Yours?
If you discover one of these in your own home, don’t panic. No one built it as a structural element, no ghost haunts it (probably), and nothing about it poses any danger. It’s just history. Literally.
That said, you have a few options:
Leave it alone: It’s sort of a cool conversation starter. “Hey, you want to see something weird in my kitchen?”
Spruce it up: If the vintage-industrial look is your thing, you could strip the paint for the metal to show through. Shine it up a bit, maybe even repaint it (if you want to get fancy, bronze or matte black).
Take it off: If you’re gut renovating and want to repair the wall, you can take it off — just be prepared for dust, maybe some soot and potentially some remnants of 1920s wallpaper.”
I Kind of Love It, Honestly
The more I find out about this tiny disc the more I sort of admire it. It has been around longer than I have been alive. Longer than the past three tenants together. It’s a reminder that people lived differently back then — had coal brought in, actually started fires to make dinner, wore those ridiculous stove-pipe hats (unrelated, but also funny).
I mean, we talk about “the good old days,” but it’s easy to neglect the stuff that made those days even tick. That stove pipe coverings were part of daily life. And now they’re just quietly crapping in the walls, waiting for someone to take note of their presence once again.
Well—I noticed. And now I’ll never see that strange circle the same way again.