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What Fireplace Accessories Do You Need?

Did you just buy your dream home with a beautiful, wood-burning fireplace? Before you light your first fire, make sure you have all of the fireplace accessories you need to make your fireplace unique and keep you and your family safe. Here are a few accessories to get you started:

Fireplace Screens for Style and Safety

While many fireplace accessories are now merely decorative and add to the ambience of a central fireplace, there are some that also provide a certain amount of safety. One such accessory is the fireplace screen. Screens can be found in any number of designs and materials, and can add a sense of style to any room. But they also help prevent sparks and too much heat from escaping into your room and possibly harming people and/or things that may be nearby. You can choose a single panel screen or one that has multiple folding panels.

Essential Fireplace Accessories: Tools

Every working fireplace needs a good set of tools so you can maintain the fireplace and keep it looking cozy. Traditionally, these tools are made out of wrought iron, but they now come in everything from brass to pewter to graphite. The following are the essential tools that should always be within arm’s reach of the fire.

The Fireplace Poker

If you want to stoke the fire, you’re going to need a fireplace poker. A poker prevents you from having to get too close to the fire to move the wood around and get the fire burning stronger. You want to stay warm, but you don’t want to get burned.

What are Fireplace Tongs For?
Similar to the poker, those tongs help you reach into the fire and move the wood around without putting yourself at risk of getting burned. But they also help you pick up the larger pieces of wood left in the fireplace after the fire has gone out.

Scoop Up Those Fireplace Ashes

Usually, a fire leaves behind a ton of ashes, and not large chunks of wood. To get those out ashes out of your fireplace, you’re going to need a scoop.

A Fireplace Broom or Brush

Of course, you don’t want to try to pick up those ashes with your hands. Make sure you have a broom or brush on hand to conveniently get those ashes into the scoop. Some brooms come with the typical long handle, and others are short for added convenience.

Stands or Hooks for Fireplace Accessories

The last component of your fireplace tool set is the stand. You can usually buy complete sets that include stands in the same material and style as the tools. You can also buy hooks that can be attached to a nearby wall and hang the tools on the hooks.

Andirons for Your Fireplace

No fireplace is complete without andirons. Andirons typically come in pairs and they are the cast iron pieces that hold up the wood or hold the grill that holds the wood. They are usually decorative and can add a specific ambience to your fireplace, depending on the design.

Even More Fireplace Accessories

Believe it or not, there are even more accessories that you might need for your home’s fireplace. Log racks are a great accessory for holding your extra wood. They come for indoor or outdoor use while log carriers help you carry wood from outside to inside. A more traditional accessory is the fireback. Like andirons, firebacks are made of cast iron and are placed at the back of the fireplace to protect it, and they radiate more heat back into the room. You can also add your own sense of style or just make your fireplace homier with a hearth rug.

Using a fireplace requires a certain amount of maintenance, but with the right accessories and tools, you can keep your fireplace burning for many years to come.

Fireplace Screens and Accessories

Fireplace Screens and Tools

Your fireplace can indeed bring years of enjoyment, but you should have the proper tools to make the fire building process as simple and easy as possible. Just like a lot of things we really enjoy, fireplaces take effort and time to keep working effectively and available for use whenever we like. Quality is indeed in the details, as noted at http://www.fireplacescreensetc.com, so be sure your hearth is ready. Here are certain fireplace supplies to keep in mind as you’re shopping for your fireplace hearth.

Wood baskets make terrific fireplace accessories and can be both stylish and convenient. You’ll find that these hearth accessories are made to go with other fireplace accessories like your tools and screen. If you get an accentuating basket, you will both complement the hearth decor while at the same time keep wood close by for those nights when you don’t want to run outdoors for it from storage. You will want to purchase a log carrier that will transport logs from the exterior rack to the basket by the fireplace. A carrier allows you to not only carry more wood to the house, but it can also keep your floors and clothes cleaner.

Fireplace screens, like any accessory for your hearth, must first be the correct size for your individual fireplace. Next, they should accentuate other fireplace accessories or you’ll just be filling the area with mismatching items that will detract from the feel and look of the space. You should keep in mind purely decorative glass firescreens do not prevent sparks from damaging your floor, and they will be destroyed if you place them in front of a roaring fire. So, always consider how you plan on using the screen then begin shopping for the screen that best suits your preferences, budget, and decor.

Today, andirons are generally used for decorative reasons to improve the look of your hearth, but they also might be used for practical purposes instead of fireplace grates. Solid Brass Andirons stand straight-up and always have some type of shank running perpendicular that can raise logs off the hearth floor. This special fireplace accessory may have either short or long shanks. A shank that is longer holds more firewood so you can build a bigger fire. Most of these wood holding accessories are specifically designed to add to or improve the decor of your existing hearth. For instance, two cat andirons may display eyes that reflect and light up while a fire is going in the fireplace producing a radiant effect that adds personality to the decor.

For a fire to function properly, it’s got to be able to breathe. A fire will receive the bulk of its oxygen from below, which is a reason for having a fireplace grate or perhaps an andiron. A fireplace grate will bring the logs off of the bottom of the hearth to help the fire breathe and keep on burning. The size of your grate will depend upon how large the fireplace opening is. Some grates are designed for more firewood but usually they will allow between 5-6 medium-sized logs to sit inside. You’ll want the length of the grate to be at least 4-6 inches short of the size of the hearth opening so the oxygen can properly feed the fire.

Fireplace hearth tools should have at least a poker, shovel, and a broom. You will need to keep your hearth area clean because the ash will smother fires making it really difficult to keep a good flame alive. The purpose of the poker is to move logs about so that the wood burns more evenly. If you don’t have these essential tools, you won’t be able to competently maintain or handle a fire.

Fireplace firebacks started in Europe and later were brought to the Americas during the Colonial period and are again gaining popularity for both their aesthetic appeal as well as functional use. Cast iron firebacks are fixed inside the fireplace toward it’s backwall. Their purpose is to trap the heat as well as conserve the backwall. Instead of permitting a greater part of the heat to escape up the chimney the firebacks absorb the heat. Then, for hours after the fire has died out, a fireback will continue to circulate heat throughout the space.

While there are several details that must be considered as you operate a fireplace, in reality the hearth will likely bring you more joy than any fixture in your house. Just make sure you always use a grate or andirons to elevate wood from the floor and to keep the space clean by using your fireplace accessories and tools. Avoid flying sparks by using a fireplace screen and always remember, a clean hearth is a happy hearth!

Author’s Bio

Pamela Tice currently owns numerous niche home decor stores. You may find more on andirons along with how to build a perfect fire by searching Fireplacescreensetc.com. now.

Just a few examples of the fantastic range of Firebacks available, including cast iron firebacks for open fires available at The FireBack Company www.thefirebackcompany.co.uk. Sizes go from up to 16″ all the way through to over 30″.
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