Intro
FIREPLACE AREA DESIGN STEPS
No other home improvement project more dramatically changes the entire feel of a home than a transformation of the home’s fireplace area.
If your home’s fireplace has a mantel that doesn’t do your home justice, or if you like your mantel, but are unable to fully utilize the spaces beside your fireplace, your situation is quite typical – and you have a tremendous opportunity to dramatically transform this vital area of your home. (It is not unusual for home builders to pay minimal attention to the fireplace area, providing a “generic” mantel, only.)
For inspiration as to the tremendous potential to transform your home’s main living area, view the “Before” and “After” photos of the Jewell, and Berger Fireplaces. Then, follow our easy Design Steps, to request a design drawing for your home!
We think of the fireplace hearth as the “heart” of the home, partly because it is usually located in the family room, adjoining the kitchen, at the hub of gatherings of family and friends, but also because of the old-fashioned connotations of the hearth as the home’s source of warmth, and hence, a gathering place, for people and pets.
Nowadays, the television has usurped the hearth’s honored position as the family’s gathering place, but, quite often, the television is located near the fireplace. This is actually an ideal location, because this arrangement enables the room’s seating arrangement to serve a dual purpose, supporting both television viewing and fireside chats. We have found this to be such a typical arrangement that we have dedicated an entire section of our web site’s Home Entertainment section to “Televisions at Fireplaces”.
Where should I place my television? Over the Mantel? Beside the Fireplace? Which Side?
Lately, many of our customers have been asking us to configure plasma televisions over the fireplace mantel, and our Photo Gallery contains examples of these projects. Other people are unsure as to the best location for their television, and they ask us for guidance in deciding if it is better to locate the television beside the fireplace or over the mantel. The answer differs for each customer and each room configuration, and our AUTOCAD automated drafting enables us to help you to decide which location (television over or beside the fireplace) is best for you. Often, this request is coupled with a request that we replace the home’s existing mantel, and this opens up an opportunity to provide a lower mantel, which, in turn, facilitates a lower television height for more comfortable viewing.
*We have recently launched this upgraded site and are still in the process of finalizing this section. Please bear with us: There are a few links yet to be closed, and some referenced photos have yet to be added.
1
MANTEL DESIGN STEPS
Following the steps, below, please record your answer for each step. The links will take you into the Photo Gallery for illustrations and examples. After you have finished this brief and focused tour through our customers’ homes, please email your answers to us, or call us and tell us your answers, so that we can record them and ask you any clarifying questions to better define what you are seeking.
1. Do you have an existing mantel that you wish to replace?
2. What depth of mantel top surface do you require? Typically, this ranges from 10 inches to 12 inches.
3. What style do you like? Send us a link to a photo of a mantel that you like or select from the following:
Ornate (e.g., McKinney Mantel, Little Mantel)
Traditional (Kennedy Mantel)
Contemporary (Glover Mantel)
Southwest (Marucci Mantel)
4. What mantel length would you like? (a) Shorter than chimney width (Marucci Mantel); or (b) wrapping around the chimney (Glover Mantel)?
5. Would you like decorative corbels? e.g. Donnelly Mantel, Marucci Mantel, Kennedy Mantel, Martin Fireplace.
6. What style of corbels do you like? (a) ornate (Donnelly Mantel) or (b) clean/classic (Marucci Mantel)?
7. Would you like pilasters (support columns) below the mantel level? (e.g., Dickenson Mantel, Little Mantel)
8. What type of pilasters would you like?
a) Plain (Jochem Fireplace)
b) Paneled (Dickenson Mantel, Glover Mantel). Please choose (a) Raised panels (Eckels Fireplace) or (b) Flat panels (Dickenson Mantel)
c) Turned or carved (Jewell TV on Mantel, Little Mantel)
d) Fluted (Martin Fireplace)
9. Would you like pilasters above the mantel level? (Eckels Fireplace, Martin Fireplace)
10. What type of upper pilasters would you like? Refer to Step 8, above, and indicate (a), (b), (c) or (d).
11. Would you like to have wood paneling above the mantel? (e.g. Carnegie Library Mantel, McKinney Mantel, Little Mantel)
12. Would you like (a) raised panels (Little Mantel) or (b) flat panels (Carnegie Library Mantel)?
13. What are the dimensions of your fireplace area?
To develop the drawings that will initiate the dialogue that will lead to the perfect mantel design for you, we will need the measurements A, B, C, etc., through N, as shown in the three views of a typical fireplace appearing below (Front Elevation View, Side View and Overhead View). For preliminary design, rough measurements (plus or minus ½ inch) are fine, as we always visit to check measurements if and when an order is placed. You may fax or e-mail these measurements to us or you may telephone us, with a tape measure in hand, and we can talk you through the measurements we need, as shown in the three diagrams below. (Or, call us to schedule a house call and we will take the measurements.) For clarification of the diagram, here is an explanation of the measurements:
A. Hearth Width (typically equal to the width of the protruding area of the fireplace)
B. Wall Width on Left Side
C. Wall Width on Right Side
D. Total Wall Width (equals A plus B plus C)
E. Fireplace Insert Exterior Width (Brass Frame around opening)
F. Fireplace Insert Exterior Height
G. Hearth Depth, from house wall
H. Depth of Fireplace Structure (brick, stone or plaster) below existing mantel level
I. Depth of chimney structure (brick, stone or plaster) above existing mantel level
J. Height of top of existing mantel
K. Length of left side wall – to first window or door (edge of casing)
L. Length of right side wall – to first window or door (edge of casing)
M. Ceiling Height
N. Height of bottom of crown molding (if your room has crown molding)
2
FIREPLACE CABINETS DESIGN STEPS:
1. Would you like (a) Free-Standing Cabinets; (b) Built-In Cabinets; or (c) Apparently Built-in Cabinets?
To help you to decide, please follow the links to these examples:
(a) Free-Standing Cabinets: Many people like to keep their future options open, by procuring a pair of free-standing cabinets that they can take with them to their next home, or pass on to their children. View the following examples:
• Cesario Fireplace Cabinets
(b) Built-In Cabinets: With a classic design, in keeping with the home’s architecture and the adjacent kitchen, built-in cabinetry is a good value-increasing investment in your home. View the following examples:
• Jewell Fireplace
• Jochem Fireplace
• Corsi Fireplace Built-ins
• Wolfe Fireplace Built-ins
• McCarthy Fireplace Built-ins
(c) Apparently Built-in Cabinets: Please refer to our Entertainment Center Design Steps for a discussion of this option. We can design and build your cabinets with finished sides and “filler boards” to connect the cabinets to your current house walls and fireplace structure, while allowing you to take the cabinets to a future home and use them as freestanding cabinets – or connect them to the walls of your next home.
2. IS THERE A TELEVISION ON THE SCENE?
Even if you do not plan to have a television above or beside the fireplace, it is wise to make provisions for the future placement of a television, as this will increase the value of your home for resale, while providing you with the look and functionality what you want for now. In either case, our photographs of fireplace cabinetry with televisions will give you ideas as to design concepts with or without a television.
TELEVISION ABOVE OR BESIDE THE MANTEL?
Our design drawings will help you to make this decision, which will be driven, in part, by the following considerations:
1. Width of the spaces beside the fireplace
2. Proximity of windows and doors in adjacent walls
3. Television size, current and future
4. Personal preferences as to television height, for comfortable viewing
To help you to decide which location is best for you, view some examples in our photo gallery.
