Decorating Tips and Tricks for your Fireplace

A fireplace can be a great addition to any room, giving the space character and a unique identity of its own. Functional fireplaces are also a great convenience in chilly winter months, giving homeowners the opportunity to cozy up to a warm flame and shake off the cold. When designing a room that contains a fireplace, it is essential to keep several different factors in mind to ensure that the fireplace is optimized effectively. The following tips offer a great starting point for those working with a home fireplace. 

Working with Size

It is important to keep the scale of the fireplace in mind when designing for a room that contains one of these features. For example, should a small fireplace be located in a large room, increasing the overall presence of the fireplace will help make it a focal point. This can be done by painting the mantel and surrounding wall in the same color. In turn utilizing complementary colors in the textiles and decor of the room will help tie the entire look together, giving the space a cohesive feel. Large fireplaces can be made more appealing by utilizing the space above the mantel to display a large portrait or mirror. 

Positioning the Fireplace

Homes that contain a fireplace already will need to be designed around the feature's location. For spaces where a fireplace will be added, it is important to think about the potential location options. Many contemporary homes feature fireplaces at eye level, allowing the fireplace to take the position of a painting or traditional wall decoration. This allows the fireplace to not only be functional, but also incorporates it into rooms where a floor position may not be ideal.  

Off-Season Decoration

Many homeowners neglect their fireplaces during warmer months, leaving the fireplace empty and devoid of activity. Rather than allowing the fireplace to go to waste, this space can actually serve as an interesting display space. Homeowners can use their imaginations to come up with inventive displays that will showcase the personality of the home's residents, while also giving the fireplace a way to shine without a log burning year round. 

Fireplaces are not only a beautiful design feature, but they can add a personal and homey feel to any space. By keeping the fireplace in mind when designing the room's surroundings, homeowners can make certain their space looks clean and dynamic. This will allow make certain that the home's residents are able to take advantage of the functional aspects of this design feature.

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Decorating a fireplace

Fireplaces are great, grand features to a home that create a focal point to a room, acting like a center piece to show class and elegance. There is no real limit to what we can do with them, even those which have long since been used as a place for a fire, however they do give us a space to decorate and draw attention to.

Fireplaces are the idea area for seasonal decoration, particularly a working fireplace. They are iconic for Christmas stockings and pinned up holly during the Christmas season and are perfect for draping fake cobwebs and hanging bats during Halloween. Yet not all homes appreciate the everyday decoration for a fireplace. People’s eyes are instinctively drawn to the fireplace, which is why so many people cover it in photo frames and leave it looking cluttered, but one photo frame with a small vase of flowers either side is a more tasteful and appealing look for your fireplace. 

Leaving the mantel bare, or almost bare with perhaps a small ornament near the middle, and hanging pictures above it can create a cozy atmosphere, particularly on a wall painted with cold colors if the other walls in the room feature warmer colors. This is particularly effective for working fireplaces.

In some cases sticking to a symmetrical design can be ideal, generally with one item at the center such as a mirror or image (a decal on the wall can be a cost effective artwork if you want to draw in some attention). However in some cases symmetry looks dull or overdone, particularly if you have a little more decoration to your fireplace, in these cases having things that are slightly off symmetrical can be a great touch; for this place pairs of items on the mantel as you would with a symmetrical design, but they don’t have to be identical – just related to each other.

Use bright colors on in a white space and light colors in a dark space. If your fireplace is white and your wall is white why not have a yellow pot or some flower design plates on show on your mantel? The color will draw in the eyes of your guest and add warmth to the room without taking away any of the light and without the dull look of black on white. Try to keep these all within the same color family for more impact. In a dark room try to use soft light shades, such as a pastel pink or blue to draw out more light in the room and create a contrast.

If your taste is more modern than a traditional 16^th century fireplace that’s being used to show off all your classical books then you might think about having something else as a focal point of the room. Modern rooms look great with sparing furniture, light colors and elegant designs; the homeliness of a fireplace rarely suits this. You might consider taking it out and replacing it with an ultra modern radiator, which depending on the style you select makes a great addition to a contemporary home appearance. 

Guest Post by: Katy Quinn - Freelance Writer  

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Upgrades That Will Boost the Functionality and Style of Your Fireplace

Improve the functionality and style of your fireplace with these clever upgrade suggestions.

There is something beguiling about a fireplace that makes it a staple feature and amenity in most homes. Having your own fireplace not only increases the value of your home but also allows you to make yourself comfortable even during cold, dark nights. Nonetheless, its imposing and beautiful features are what make it an ideal focal point for any space.

However, due to constant use and exposure to heat during winter months and lack of usage during hot summer days, a fireplace can eventually lose its appeal and probably its functionality. So before you spark up the logs again this winter, try upgrading some of the parts of your fireplace to improve its functionality and style and make it look good as new with these suggestions.

Integrate glass fireplace doors

There's nothing quite like a cozy fire and a cup of hot coffee on a chilly night. However, an open wood-burning fireplace left unattended is not safe. So to ensure that your fireplace is safe, consider retrofitting it with glass fireplace doors. Integrating such safety feature to an existing fireplace requires minimal elbow greasing on your part since it comes in a standard size that easily fits in any flat fireplace opening. Likewise, you will not have a hard time attending to its upkeep as it requires little maintenance.

Get your brick fireplace in tip-top condition

If your fireplace is made out of brick, it is likely that its mortar is starting to fall out, crumble and crack due to years of exposure to searing-hot blazes. Broken mortar joint not only make your fireplace less appealing, they can also become a precursor for the entire bricks to become susceptible to damage, which can cost you more money for future repairs. Hence, to avoid problems later on, take the time to evaluate the condition of your brick fireplace, including the mortar. If you find any damaged parts, replace them immediately.

Fit it with an insert

While a fireplace is a beautiful feature for your home, it also happens to be a major energy waster. By nature, fireplaces, including yours, is not efficient as they pull out warm air out of the room and send a huge portion of valuable heat out of the chimney. Therefore, when temperatures significantly drop, your fireplace uses up more energy than it makes, which in turn increases your monthly heating bills. So to make your fireplace efficient, consider fitting it with an insert.

An fireplace insert is a fireproof box surrounded by cast iron or steel and an insulated glass front. The surrounding cast iron or steel traps the heat and keep it in the room, thereby making an open fireplace draft-proof. Although an insert may be expensive upfront, it is actually a good investment as it pays for itself for the long term by significantly reducing the cost of your heating bills.

Tile the hearth and surround

The mantel on your fireplace does the job at keeping it aesthetically pleasing. However, the hearth and surround are also prime spaces that offer you a lot of creative opportunities to further increase the visual prowess of your fire feature. One of the best ways to dress up the buffer between your fireplace and flooring as well as its surround is to cover them with colorful tiles.

There are numerous masonry products from which you could choose from to jazz up your hearth and surround. Some are decorative while others are more formal looking. Just make sure that you pick something that can withstand heat and possible log drops every now and then. The great thing about tiling a hearth and surround is that you can change up the entire look of your fireplace within a week or two. Nonetheless, the tiles will also make it easier for you to clean up your fireplace, since they are stain-resistant.

The article above was contributed by one of the writers of We Do Boxes <http://www.wedoboxes.co.uk/>, a company based in the UK that supplies high quality cardboard packing and moving boxes at affordable rates.