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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

FIreplaces and Wood Stoves, what's not to love?

Every house I have ever lived in has had a fireplace. At least the ones I remember. The remodeled chicken coop I lived in until I was 4 may not have had one, but then it was constructed out of pretty old and dry wood. It probably would have gone up like a match. All of the other ones, however, have been enhanced by the presence of a warm and glowing spot in the living room.

The fireplace had special importance attached to it when I was a kid. Every Sunday, or most of them, anyway, my dad would put a substantial piece of steak on a special grilling rack with a long handle, and he would work culinary magic over the fireplace logs. If we were really out to have a good time, we would cook either popcorn or marshmallows over them, too. The popcorn usually signaled a session of home-movie watching, while the marshmallows were just good sticky fun.

In high school I lived in a fabulous Victorian farmhouse with 12-foot ceilings and two fireplaces, back-to-back, in two joined parlors. Pocket doors separated the spaces, but I don't ever remember them being closed. At any given time in colder weather the fireplaces would be blazing away. This was partly for aesthetic enjoyment, but mostly because the big old place was almost impossible to heat. We would bundle up with a blanket or two and plunk ourselves down in front of the warmth, watching the crackling flames and  feeling the heat on our faces. It was a gathering place out of necessity, but that didn't make our enjoyment any less measurable.

When I first started living on my own, I searched for apartments in old buildings, mostly to find an abode with a fireplace. In some of those apartments it would have been courting disaster if I had actually piled up some wood and found a match, but I enjoyed the possibility if not the reality. When my husband and I  finally got down to some serious house-hunting, there was no way I would have even considered a home with no fireplace.

When we first found our wonderful old stone foursquare, built in 1900, we were delighted to see that it not only had a fireplace, but it had originally been a coal-burner, and had some beautiful cast iron grates and covers. They were great to look at, but we really enjoyed the open fireplace as a room-warmer. Once again I had settled in a great old house with little to no insulation. It wasn't too long before we found a fabulous used wood-and-coal burning stove to insert into our lovely fireplace and vent up the existing chimney. The flue has since been replaced.

When our children were babies I can remember a night in the middle of winter when we had no power for close to 24 hours. We set up lots of blankets and a sleeping bag or two and everybody slept on the living room floor in front of the stove. It was an adventure, but not necessarily one I'd like to repeat. I did love the coal aspect of the stove, however. One good load of coal would burn for up to 16 hours, keeping the whole house toasty. Of course, as I was the stay-at-home Mom, it was my job to stoke the thing, and shovel the coal, and empty the ashes. I felt like a pioneer of sorts.

That stove still sits, 30 years later, in my living room fireplace, and still is used (though only with wood nowadays) quite regularly in the winter. It does a great job of warming the front half of the house, and works nicely as a spot for a kettle of piping hot water for tea or just to add to the humidity. It has been cooked on once in a while, again when the power goes out. That still has a feeling of adventure to it, though I am happy it doesn't happen often.

Recently my husband and I have opened the conversation on retirement, and the downsizing that seems to go naturally along with it. I easily admit that our large house needs a lot of maintenance, and that we probably should look for something smaller and less difficult to care for. No matter where it is, or what style, or what age, there is one item I refuse to do without, and that is the fireplace. I do not, mind you, want one of those phoney-logged electric or gas fired things that are in so many newer homes. They look nice, but serve no purpose and have no aesthetic variety in their looks.

No, I want only the real thing, with a pile of wood outside and a stack in the living room. I will still enjoy crumpling up the old newspapers, putting on the kindling, and adding just the right logs at just the right time. Not only does a fireplace bring warmth and comfort, but it includes with it a big batch of family memories, and waits for more moments when gathering with long, skinny forks and a bowl of marshmallows is still very tempting.