“The living-room must have a fireplace, because a living-room without a fireplace is like a face without eyes ~ nothing to light it up, to give it expression.
Whether the fireplace shall be at the side of the room or at the end is purely a matter of choice and of convenience to your other plans. . . .
There are advantages to be considered in placing the fireplace at either the side or at the end of the room. At the side it greets you pleasantly as you enter. Also, if you should want to open the chimney on the porch or sun-parlor side of the wall and have a fireplace there, you can do so. On the other hand, bookcases seem so completely to finish the architecture of the fireplace that it is a pity not to have them, and you can’t have them and have doors opening on to your sun-parlor too. And I certainly should have the sun-parlor off the living-room. So there you are.
If the fireplace is at the end of the room you can have bookcases at either side with small high windows above them, and you can also have your doors on to the sun-parlor so that the two rooms open together giving still more effect of space.” (From A Home of Your Own by Della Thompson Lutes, 1925)
Do you have a fireplace? Or a wood stove or pellet stove? Have you begun lighting it for the season, or are you holding on to summer as long as possible?
Yes, we have a fireplace. We used it quite a lot last winter.
But winter, such as it is here, will not arrive for a couple more months!
-looking forward to another year with a warm hearth-
My daughter came in from feeding the chickens on a crisp frosty morning earlier this week. She said, “I found the sweet spot!” I’m sure I had a quizzical look on my face because she grinned. I had just finished starting a fire in the wood stove for only the second time this season. There is a bit of disheveled firewood still outside the woodshed waiting to be split–the last of what is needed to get us through the winter. She said if you stand in the middle of the firewood you can smell the fresh wood along with the wisps of smoke from the chimney at the same time. This, she declared, is the sweet spot!
Sadly woodstoves have replaced fireplaces–just not the same ambiance.