Gadgets and Gizmo World

The usual gas or wood burning fireplace has three major parts: the hearth, mantel and surrounds. More often than not, homeowners tend to accentuate the hearth and mantel believing that surrounds are not as equally important as these two when it comes to decorative capabilities. However, it must also be considered that fireplace surrounds have the same design capacity as the hearth and mantel. In fact, if your surrounds are updated with highly ornamental fire resistant materials, it is more likely that this part of the fireplace will become the main decorative feature of your fire fixture.

Fireplace surrounds of traditional wood and gas burning fireplace were usually constructed from hand carved wood. However, in these modern times, contemporary non-porous and fire resistant materials are put in place of wood such as bricks, tiles, marbles and limestone. Many homeowners regard these materials as more safer to use than wood and they are also highly ornamental. Likewise, they are inexpensive alternatives to wood surrounds as these natural stones demands less design labor, unlike their wood counterparts that needs hand carved detailing which is to laborious to make.

To update the look of your fireplace, the best thing to do is to start with your fireplace surrounds. There’s a whole range of design ideas that you can do with the use of the abovementioned natural stone products. To achieve a rustic fireplace, using limestone surrounds could definitely accentuate this style most especially if you partner it with furniture pieces that are either green or earth tones. To match your European living space, donning your surrounds with marbles can accentuate the European appeal of your living area; marble surrounds have an elegant flare in them that complements well with darker tones.

If you have a traditional fireplace that holds both the surrounds and mantel, which is more commonly referred to as fireplace mantel surrounds, the materials that works well with it are bricks. As bricks usually have a fired color in them, incorporating them as your mantel surrounds could surely induce a classic look on your fireplace, which in turn could become the jumpstart point for your overall interior design. This motif works great with electric fireplaces too.

In addition, the alternating courses of headers and stretchers of stacked bricks echoes the grandiosity of world renowned brick structures such as Germany’s Chile house and England’s Thornbury Castle; hence, if you use bricks as the primary materials for your surrounds, it is also like having a brick landmark inside your space. However, if you’re not into classical design, you can also paint the bricks with your chosen hue to make it appear more upbeat; just try to make sure that it complements the color scheme of your home’s interiors.

Similar to bricks, tiles are also perfect materials to achieve softer looking fireplace mantel surrounds. By combining mosaic glass tiles or pebble tiles into an image or pattern, you could surely make your surrounds appear more representative of your personality. If you lack the patience and creativity to put tiles together, you can have your tile surrounds digitally customized for you; this technique uses digital manipulation over the tile to create certain images or murals, but this could cost you an arm and a leg so better be prepared with your money if you want to have this type of tile surrounds. To simply put it, the design possibilities for tiles are limitless, you only have to think out of the box in order to incorporate them on your surrounds.

Meanwhile, if you’re living in an urban area which won’t permit you to use traditional gas or wood burning fireplace, a quick fix for this issue is the faux electric fireplace. The good thing about this fireplace is that you can position it anywhere around your home as it is not permanently attached to the wall. Some electric fireplace fixtures also come with mantel and surrounds that you can redecorate just like traditional wood or gas burning fireplace. Definitely, with the design options you have for your surrounds and your fireplace in general, you have all the reasons to love your fireplace even more.

Nothing beats the power of electric fireplace heaters during cold evenings. As the fireplace is the most functional and appealing fire feature we can have at home, its design needs should be properly attended. The appearance of your fireplace surrounds or fireplace mantel surrounds should be designed based on you personal preference when it comes to color and materials.

If you have a faux electric fireplace, you can sustain its natural appeal by incorporating a minimalist style to its mantel and surrounds. So, you want to update the look of your fireplace? Then, it would be preferable to start your project by changing your fireplace surrounds or fireplace mantel surrounds. By using materials such as bricks, limestone, marbles or tiles you can definitely achieve a distinct look for your fireplace. As for a faux electric fireplace, you could improve its looks by placing a glass panel that would further highlight its simulated fire whenever it is in use.