Further Reading

The usual gas or wood burning fireplace has three major parts: the hearth, mantel and surrounds. Frequently, many homeowners regard the hearth and mantel as the principal decorative features of the fireplace, often disregarding the design prowess of surrounds. However, it must be taken into account that aside from the hearth and mantel, fireplace surrounds are also valuable design features. 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. Currently though, more contemporary non-porous and fire resistant natural stone products like bricks, tiles, marbles and limestone serves as alternatives for wood surrounds. Many homeowners now make use of these materials because they are safer and are also visually enticing. Nonetheless, they are way cheaper than wood materials because their natural aesthetics need no further intricacies to highlight their appeal, unlike wood which is laborious to make as it requires detailed hand-carvings which could take longer time to finish.

To update the look of your fireplace, the best thing to do is to start with your fireplace surrounds. There's no limit as to what you can do with the natural stone materials mentioned earlier. To have a rustic looking fireplace, utilizing limestone surrounds can do the trick for you; such natural stone goes well with furnishings that are earth in tone, and if the design is appropriately applied you can definitely gain a space that is rustically country in appeal. 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. Similarly, the alternating courses of headers and stretchers that are often achieved by stacking bricks on top of each other are resonant of the beautiful and popular brick structures like the Chile house in Germany and the Thorbury Castle in England; so, if you use brick surrounds it would be like having your own famous brick landmark inside the comfort of your home. 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.

To give your fireplace mantel surrounds a softer feature, the best materials to use are tiles. What you can do to make your surrounds more distinct is to combine mosaic glass tiles or pebble tiles into a specific image or patterns. If you have enough funds laid out for your fireplace design though, you can opt for digital tile surrounds wherein printing techniques and digital manipulation would be used on the tiles to create a customized image or murals. The design possibilities of tiles are endless, all you have to do is to be imaginative about what design you want to incorporate on your surrounds.

Meanwhile, if you're living in the city and would like to have your own fire feature that requires little design updates, the faux electric fireplace would work well for you. The good thing about this fireplace type is that it does not necessarily have to be permanently positioned in one place; as it is portable, you can place it anywhere according to your own preference. Some electric fireplace furnishings are also equipped with mantel and surrounds which you accentuate with glass panels. All in all, with the design prowess of your surrounds, a simple material update can make your fireplace appear more appealing.

Changing the materials you use for your fireplace surrounds or fireplace mantle surrounds could significantly transform your fireplace as the focal decorative feature of your home. Natural stone products like bricks, marbles, tiles and limestone could do wonders for the aesthetics of traditional wood or gas burning fireplace. If you use a faux electric fireplace, the best thing to do to update its look is by changing its surrounds with glass panel which could improve the appearance of simulated fire.