Focus on Fireplaces

Fireplaces are an ideal way to keep warm in the winter, but did you know that early fireplaces often held several fires, or that you should check your chimney annually to make sure it’s not a fire hazard?

Read interesting facts, tips, and product suggestions in our Focus on Fireplaces, then check out our Fireplace Photo Album on Facebook!

Old-House History

A Frame for the Fireplace The stylistic history of mantels.

The Beauty of the Mantel The mantelpiece becomes a signature focal point.

Designing a Fireplace Adding a historically inspired mantel to your reproduction fireplace offers a period look for your home.

House Tours: The Fireplace

Click to enlarge. Happy Marriage Gregory and Carolynn Schipa join an 1810 Greek Revival and a 1790 Cape-style cottage harmoniously on the island of Nantucket. Greg Schipa had the house—including the frame, antique wide-plank flooring, doors, mantels, stairs, and glass—disassembled and had the pieces piled into a tractor trailer and then onto a ferry for transport to the island.

Click to enlarge. An Arts & Crafts Gem Restored Bricks along the back wall of the living room’s grand fireplace had rotted away; they were replaced in a herringbone pattern per the originals. Stripping the painted woodwork revealed what appears to be an abstract rose design inset into the inglenook benches. The soapstone mantel, carved by Rose Valley artisan John Maene in 1904, remained intact. Click to enlarge. Mercer-designed Rip Van Winkle story tiles in a smoked finish decorate the new family room’s mantel, helping tie in the addition.

Click to enlarge. Streamline “We hadn’t been in the house six hours,” says Daniel Donnelly, “when we tore off the existing mantelpiece—a boxy faux-Georgian affair with dentil moldings. The original cast-concrete mantel was still there underneath it!” An unusual house to begin with, the Streamline-style or Art Moderne residence had been artlessly “modernized” in recent decades, so it took people with vision to restore it. Daniel and Patricia Donnelly were up to the challenge.

Decorating Ideas

TV Camouflage Hide your flat screen in the fireplace.

Miles Industries / Valor Gas Fireplaces If your house didn’t come with a fireplace, Valor fireplaces look like the real thing and are fully functional heaters that don’t use electricity (or chimneys!).

Safety Tips

Chimney Checklist Is your chimney safe?

How to Protect Your Home from Fires

In the Bookstore

Price: 12.95 Providing heat, ambience, and a living room focal point (before the advent of television), fireplaces were among the most practical–and visually striking–features of bungalow interiors. 72 pages, 50 photographs and illustrations, most full-color. By Paul Duchscherer & Douglas Keister Purchase now!	Original Price: 24.95 Sale Price: 21.21 This book showcases hundreds of indoor and outdoor fireplaces, woodburning, gas and freestanding. This is the only book you’ll need to learn how to create or remake the hearth of your home. By Jane Gitlin. Purchase now!

Product & Restoration Directory

Miles Industries / Valor Gas Fireplaces Wide selection of quality made, energy efficient gas fireplaces with an impressive collection of uniquely styled trims and accessories.

Chimneypot.com Chimney pots add elegance and style to any roofline, and an immediate sense of age to period-style architecture. Pots are easy to install, and improve fireplace draft.

Vermont Castings Cast-iron gas-flame stoves and direct-vent fireplace inserts, offered in a full range of verastile trims and accessories.

For more heating products and accessories, browse through our directory of Fireplaces, Radiators, Registers & Grilles.

You might also like:

1. 5 Historic Hotels in Seattle
2. Designing Reproduction Fireplaces for Traditional Homes