Decorative fireplace covers can be a marvelous addendum to your room décor. Whether the fireplace is in your living room, family room, den, library or bedroom, a beautiful screen or glass front can make your fireplace even more beautiful.
Decorative fireplace covers can be a marvelous addendum to your room décor. Whether the fireplace is in your living room, family room, den, library or bedroom, a beautiful screen or glass front can make your fireplace even more beautiful.
A good fireplace cover is an excellent way to prevent your beautiful hearth fire from turning into a bad master, rather than a good servant – to mangle the old aphorism. A wood fire in a well-engineered fireplace makes a focal point that is like no other. It mingles sight, sound and aroma to create an ambiance that is only possible with a real wood fire. Unfortunately, it also produces ash, smoke, and, if the wood pops, the occasional flying coal. A good cover can keep your wood fire in its place – and there isn’t any reason at all not to make it beautiful while you are about it.
A fire screen will do a great deal toward keeping your fireplace fire behind the firedogs. The small mesh prevents large bits of live coal from popping out of the fireplace while allowing the marvelous aroma of burning wood to permeate the room. Most fire screens can be folded or slid aside to allow activities such as popping corn, roasting marshmallows or wieners, or even baking the occasional apple. Not all fireplaces are large enough to accommodate a tea kettle or Dutch oven, but some are – which can add to the ambient aroma. Scrolled iron panels with wire mesh are a good choice and are marvelously decorative, but mesh screens can also be attached to guides and slid across the fireplace opening.
Equally decorative and practical, are glass fire doors. They not only restrain flying sparks but help control smoke and ash. Their use sacrifices some of the aroma and perhaps some of the open-flame cooking options, but preserves the beauty and practicality of an open fire in your home. Glass is an excellent medium for baked-on designs. Fire screens and fire doors make excellent decorative covers for your fireplace. They enhance its ability to act as the focal point for a room, while doing a stalwart job of keeping flying sparks and ash in their place. Here are ten examples of decorative fireplace covers for you to admire or consider.
