STONE FIREPLACE

Nothing makes a home as cozy as a stone fireplace. Cuddling up in a wool blanket and listening to the crackle of the fire as the smell of burnt wood permeates the air just sooths the soul and the senses.

For me, the stone fireplace declares the time of year, the passing from one season to another. In spring and summer-time it holds candles not a crackling fire. The arrival of fall brings with it small fires to take away the evening chill. Winter has a full, rolling blaze to fight off the bone chilling cold of Ohio Januarys. But always, regardless the season, it serves as a focal point and anchors the room.

We had the stone fireplace in the picture build in our old house years ago. When me moved from there two years ago to our cabin I can honestly say it was the fireplace that I have missed the most. We had lived in that house for twenty nine years. Many winters was spent gathered around that fireplace. 

Because we wanted more of a heat source than a focal point in our cabin, when we renovated we had a stone wall and hearth with a Vermont Casting Stove put in the living/ kitchen area. The stone fireplace was beautiful but we lost a lot of heat up that chimney and caused high winter heating bills that we wanted to avoid. The Vermont Casting Stove is small but mighty. It will run you out of the cabin when you fire it completely full of wood. Our furnace never kicks on if we have a fire going…which is always!

As with the stone fireplace, the Vermont Casting Stove also signals the changing of the seasons. Spring is finally here. It won’t be long until we will be cleaning out the chimney, sweeping out the ashes and placing candles inside the glass doors. Next week we plan to start getting our wood in for next year. We stack it in the yard and let it dry out all summer before we store it in the lean-to until we need it when the wind blows the snow sideways again next winter.

The seasons change. Winter comes and goes. Cut – stack – burn. Repeat. 

I love a wood fire!

Dianna