March 16th, 2010
Not only do fireplaces make wonderful focal points for any room in your home, they can also add to the value of your property. To be frank, in today’s current economic climate anything that does that has to be worthy of consideration.
In the video link below, (sadly this particular video won’t allow embedding), New York interior design specialists discuss how some design features of your fireplace can add more value to your home than others.
If you can manage to get over the somewhat off-putting style of delivery, there is some valuable information here.
Learn about:
1. the do’s and don’ts for placing plasma TVs above the fireplace
2. which room is best for adding a fireplace in terms of resale value
3. the fuel gel fireplace trend (easy, inexpensive, and stylish)
4. using decorative mantels and other fireplace surround materials to tie in with your room’s colour scheme
5. the romance of coal and wood-burning fireplaces.
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Tags: fireplace design, Fireplace Mantels, Fireplace Surrounds
August 8th, 2009
There are many types of fireplace mantel material, including cast iron, wood, marble, stone, and slate. Each has its own strengths and attractions, and all look equally at home in both traditional and contemporary settings. Here is a quick recap of the different types of mantel material:
Cast iron has been popularly used in the construction of fires and fireplace mantels since the Victorian era. With the advent of the industrial revolution, the production of cast iron soared, and thus it was used to create fires and fireplaces on a large scale. In fact, a typical Victorian fireplace was made entirely of cast iron – the combination cast iron fireplace comprised the grate, insert and fireback in one solid unit, and these were commonly found in bedrooms. Although commonly found, Victorian cast iron fireplaces were beautiful, with excellent standards of craftsmanship, and are still in demand today. Also, cast iron fires and fireplaces are still in production today, in line with the demand for cast iron reproduction fireplaces.
Marble is perhaps the most opulent and luxurious of all fireplace materials, and, as a result of this, it has been used to construct fireplace mantels for hundreds of years. Several hundreds of years ago, grand marble fireplaces covering a whole wall could be seen in many a stately home, and on a much smaller scale up and down the country. These were constructed from pure marble and thus very expensive, but today marble fireplaces are much more affordable. Many marble fireplaces are made from micro or conglomerate marble, and these are much cheaper than pure marble. Marble is also a very hardwearing material – it can last a lifetime – and easy to keep clean. As a result, marble fireplace mantels always have been and will continue to be in big demand.
Other popular fireplace mantel materials are wood and stone. Stone is a natural product that is millions of years old, and rustic stone fireplaces are all slightly different in terms of markings and colour. Stone is a very hardwearing material but brings a surprising warmth and softness to the home due to its colour, which is usually various tones of beige. It looks great when contrasted with the smoothness of marble. Wood is probably the most commonly used material for fireplace mantels due to its versatility and affordability, and the fact that it is very hardwearing. Most solid wood fireplaces are made from inexpensive pine and then varnished in various wood colours, but some expensive solid wood fireplaces are fashioned from mahogany or yew. Many modern wood fireplaces are mass-manufactured from MDF, and these are sold very cheaply. There really is a huge choice of wood mantels, both period and contemporary, and this is testament to their popularity.
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Tags: Fireplace Mantels
August 4th, 2009
The Art Deco style was resolutely orientated towards modernity as demonstrated by the choice of materials, techniques, and often futuristic lines. Art Deco mantels were very graphic and geometrical, whilst the ultimate focus of the Art Deco style was elegance and sobriety.
Historical influence was discarded in favour of modern ideas and decorative detail was sacrificed to function. Industrial designs and methods were adopted. Modern fireplace designs were often reflected in the worldwide craze for Egyptology, after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.
The typical characteristics of the Art Deco mantel are clean lines and sharp edges, stylishness and symmetry, often with references to ancient Egyptian and Greek designs – Stylised flowers, women and animals, geometric patterns, zigzags, chevrons and lightning bolts show this clearly.
Also, elements of the Orient, tribal Africa and the Ballet Russes were to be found in Art Deco mantels. Other common motifs included geometric patterning, steps, setbacks and sunbursts.
There was a wealth of Art Deco mantel designs, using traditional materials but in a more spectacular way. The majority of mantels were made of wood, usually oak, walnut or mahogany, and these were lacquered to give a modern feeling without being overtly ornate.
Whilst the traditional homeowner would have incorporated a simple wooden surround with a modern ceramic insert, a true follower of Art Deco would have had a machine-manufactured complete ceramic unit.
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Tags: Fireplace Mantels, Modern Fireplaces
August 1st, 2009
The architect and designer Charles Annesley Voysey (1877- 1941) was a member of the Arts and Crafts Movement and he wanted to design fireplaces which were suitable for an advancing modern age, such as the Edwardian era. Voysey believed that there was an infinite number of ways to enhance the hearth through the fireplace surround, and he designed many styles of mantel in cast iron, pressed metal, wood and tile. In common with the movement’s principles, Voysey favoured the minimal look and dismissed the Victorian love of excess and splendour as ‘a mass of useless ornament’.
As a result, Edwardian mantels were markedly less decorative than Victorian ones, with cleaner lines and less ornamentation. However, the Edwardians shared the same eclectic tastes as the Victorians and there were many decorative influences to be seen in fireplaces of the period, from Neo-medievalism and Georgian through to the more recent Art Nouveau. The Art Nouveau style was characterised by long curving lines, often referred to as ‘whiplash lines’, and bold shapes. This style was short lived and fell out of favour before the First World War.
Early Edwardian mantels were made from slate, pine or deal, which was painted – mahogany and oak mantlepieces were still popular, but these were never painted. .Taller over-mantels with mirrors were an innovation of the Edwardian age, with cast iron, copper or tiled fireplace inserts. Although marble mantels could still be found in grander homes, they were generally in decline.
In the late Edwardian era, around the beginning of the First World War, the cast iron fireplace industry rapidly fell from favour and came to an end. From this point, fireplace inserts were usually made wholly from tile, using a technique known as ‘slabbing’. With this technique, manufacturers were able to mass- produce a wide range of Edwardian mantels, made from tile, stone and brick, for the huge housing estates being built at the end of the war. Tiled fireplaces tended to be in pastel colours or iridescent glazes, leaving the dark and depressing shades of Victorian tiled fireplaces in the past where they belonged.
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Tags: Antique Fireplaces, Fireplace Mantels
