Fireplace Accessories For Every Season
To help you enjoy your fireplace in the summer, winter, spring, and fall, there are unique and attractive fireplace accessories that will give you the distinctive atmosphere of each season. Whether yours is an electric fireplace, gas, or wood burning fireplace, you can make it feel cool rather than warm with a summery colored backdrop featuring a fan to add a breeze to the environment. It need not be a cast iron fireback like those used in Europe to protect the actual fireplace brick and distribute heat.
In summer, all you need is a colorful framed or unframed picture or print and a fan with perhaps a floral design. Using a metal or glass screen (even mirrors) on the back can add light and texture to the diorama you produce in the center. Candelabras and Candle Holders can be decorated to fit with any season and give the area a romantic glow whether they are lit or not!
The usual warm weather fireplace accessories that you use in winter such as mesh curtains, hearth rugs, trivets, hot plates, humidifiers, hot pots, andirons, bellows, fans, fenders, unique grates, safety screens, match holders, popcorn poppers, and metal or pottery accessories can be lightened with color and electric illumination from twinkle or patio lights to create a fresh impression to suit the warmer seasons.
Fireplace doors are not only a functional and safe addition, but can also change the mood of the room. Sealed doors save energy and contain odors. These masonry or metal firebox enclosures feature easy care metal finishes and tempered glass. Bi fold, cabinet doors, mesh, louvered glass, or corner doors offer your choice for convenient access to the firebox.
Fireplace tools such as a poker, tongs, broom, shovel, or brush are often set on the hearth in a metal stand handy maintenance of the fire. They vary from the simple $10.00 four piece set to themed sets on pewter statuary or elaborate brass or copper golf themed sets that can be very costly. Some sets are incorporated into the design of a wood box. Appropriate tools are a necessary addition to your fireplace accessories.
Fireplace mantels can present the minimalist style in simple metal. Ornately carved exotic wood is an impressive addition in formal, classical or eclectic styles. The country-look of logs or woods with character features such as spalls, knots, worm holes, blue stain, or grain lines is timeless. Marble, granite, and other specialty cut stone makes an impressive mantel as well. Whether pre-made or custom made, a mantel can make or break the fireplace.
A Challenge To Santa: Fireplace Accessories
Every Christmas Eve, Santa Claus wiggles his way through countless numbers of fireplace doors. Each pair of doors insures the safety and functionality of a hearth. The fireplace accessories around the hearth opening manage to put each glowing fire in a stylish metal frame.
Hearth Collections are not defined by their fireplace tools. The defining characteristic of any such collection lies in the nature of the fireplace screen. Traditional or Custom accessories have a simple frame, one that does not contain a single visible rivet.
Some hearth accessories have been categorized as “rivet flat.” The visible rivets in each of their screens form a straight line across the top of that screen. Other such accessories have been described as “rivet arched.” They all have arched frames, and a curved line of rivets that follows the curvature of the frame’s top.
A top quality steel screen has artisan crafted and hand-forged components. The fine wire mesh in such a screen allows it to keep sparks from flying into the room, the room that can feel the warmth of the fire’s flames. Sometimes a quality screen has a forged iron finish; sometimes it has a matte black coating. In either case, that finish or coat enjoys the protection of a clear coat, one that enhances the beauty of the metal screen.
While an electric fireplace does not need a tool set, a homeowner might want to place a poker, shovel, broom and tongs adjacent to the hearth, in order to play down the presence of a fire that is less than real. When a fireplace holds a true fire, then it should have a firm and secure screen.
The varied types of fireplace mantels reflect the varied environments that benefit from a glowing fire. A formal setting, such as a living room would need a mantel such as the one found in the picture on restorationhardware.com. That lovely wooden mantel joins with a screen from the Rivet Hearth Collection, as it frames a warming fire. The formality of that mantel forms a sharp contrast to the sort of mantel one might find in a family room.
A family room might have been designed so that the brick in the fireplace extends out onto the wall around the brick hearth. In that less than formal setting, the mantel could well be a thick, long wooden beam, a beam anchored to the brick on the wall. To complete to look of your fireplace, look for ideas by searching for your fireplace accessories online.
The Various Fireplace Accessories For Your Home
If your home has a fireplace then you have probably shopped for some fireplace accessories to use with it. The various kinds of items you can use in conjunction with a fireplace can be functional or decorative. Most fireplaces have some type of screen or protective element in front of it. This can also be fireplace doors which might be constructed of glass. The doors made of glass can come as plain styles or with decorative etchings on them. These are generally used with units that are built-in to a home when it is constructed.
Fireplace mantels are also items which are generally built-in when the fireplace is installed in the home. A mantel is the top portion above a fireplace which usually has a broad shelf like area. The design for a mantel can be one which is made of wood or stone. Wood is a common material for the mantel and it is often used to place decorative centerpiece items on as a focal point for the room. A stone mantel may not protrude as far out from the base wall as a wood one and is often left unadorned.
In the line of fireplace accessories you will find several styles of fireplace tools to choose from. The tools come as a set which is placed on one side of your fireplace unit. The set will contain a brush, shovel, poker and tongs. These are all items used in placing logs and cleaning the area. You will also find several types of log holders or baskets you might use. These items are generally placed on the opposite side of the tools. All of the fireplace accessories are available in the popular black cast iron material as well as a few other styles such as brass or wood.
If the home you live in does not have a built-in fireplace you can still get the beauty and heat of having a traditional unit by purchasing one of several types of electric fireplaces. These items come as free standing units which can be placed against a wall or set in the middle of the room, depending on the design. The come with the same styles and features as the built-in items, but are more cost efficient and easy to use. They are available in different sizes ranging from an 18 inch unit to a large 33 inch one. A well designed fireplace will provide an attractive addition to any room it is in.
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