The fireplace brings "charm" to our home.

Our fireplace.

When we started looking for a house, we really didn't have a long list of "must haves", we just kind of felt we would know our house when we saw it. A big part of recognizing the house that would be ours was to find one with "charm". What "charm" is, or is not, is of course, very personal. And I suppose some do not even care about charm and just want functionality. That of course brings up the concern that a house can have too much charm and end up being ridiculous. We saw several homes that were in good condition, had nice features, but no charm.

The house we chose to be our home, has loads of charm. Among the charming features are huge and useful porch, beautiful, refinished hardwood floors, and a fireplace. A fireplace was as

A face cord in the garage

close to a "must have" as anything for us. I know wood burning fireplaces are about as inefficient of a heating source as you can get, and that they are dirty, but you really can't beat the crackling fire and sweet slightly smokey smell of a good hardwood fire. I love too how it makes me more active, whether it's stacking, stocking, or splitting wood, or simply getting up off the couch to attend the fire with a poke. A side benefit is the approving glances I get from Cindy whenever a roaring fire is going in the hearth. We've already noticed how the fireplace has made us more of home bodies, not just in the evenings after work, but all day on the weekend, staying home for breakfast and spending the day working on projects and monitoring the fire.

After recognizing the beauty of our fireplace, and purchasing our home,

Our first fire

Observation Car, 20th Century Limited

we got some not so good news from the chimney expert. Our flue was constructed with a right angle turn, with several feet of horizontal passage before heading straight up the chimney. This was no longer in code and it was his opinion that we may get smoke in the house if we tried to use it. The good news is that he was able to un-jam the damper and pull the dead squirrels out of the flue. He also installed a rain shield and animal screen at the top. I was very concerned and disappointed that one of the key attractions of the house may not be usable. He did suggest that a gas insert would solve the problem. Ugh. Sorry for my friends that have them but to me gas fireplaces are as different in charm to wood burners as coach class on Delta Airlines has to a Pullman coach on the famous 20th Century Limited. (I'm a train geek - sorry) The good news is that he was wrong. Our first fire, on a mild Christmas day, that should have caused trouble drawing smoke, created no problems. We've had no problems since, possibly because the right angle section is a good 6 feet above the hearth. One problem we did come across is the shear size of the fireplace. I would love to get glass doors but the huge opening (55" across) has eliminated all off-the-shelf options. Custom built doors cost several thousand dollars and are probably not an option, at least for now. We ended up going with a folding screen with mesh doors that are barely covering the opening.

#1 Brother-In-Law Randy allowed be to abuse his truck again.

Another issue was firewood. On any normal winter, demand for firewood outstrips supply sometime in the Fall. At first I was buying those ridiculously expensive bundles at the grocery store so we had something to burn. This year, our mild winter allowed me to find seasoned fire wood after only two phone calls. After borrowing Randy's truck again, I headed up to Robinson Hill Nursery where a very helpful young man helped me load a face cord. The well seasoned wood has been burning nicely.