Adding a gas fireplace when remodeling a kitchen or bath has become popular with homeowners in colder climates. The price of natural gas, propane and electricity that are routinely used as fuel for heating homes has skyrocketed in recent years.
Adding a fireplace to a kitchen may initially appear to provide only a design element for a country home or farmhouse effect. In reality, this can be a common sense addition to your home. For busy families with two wage earners, time spent at home on weekdays is limited. Mornings are a rush to get dressed for work or school, grab a cup of coffee and a quick breakfast and then everyone is out the door till evening.
If you’ve lived where winters are months of bitter cold, you’ll recall jumping out of bed to turn up the thermostat in years past. Now you set the automatic thermostat to come on early in the morning so your family will wake to a warm and comfortable home. You heat the entire house using a considerable amount of energy – only for the one hour mad rush in the morning.
Some lucky homeowners, especially in the Midwest, have discovered beautiful fireplaces behind walls when they remodel an old, outdated country kitchen. When the older homes were built that kitchen fireplace provided the only heat to the room. Fifty years later an owner added a modern kitchen (for the period) and the fireplace was viewed as old fashioned. The solution was to build a wall covering the fireplace.
When the hidden fireplace was discovered in a later renovation it often became the focal point of the new kitchen. Many of these featured arched openings and some retained pot hooks and other accessories piled into the firebox. Originally, homeowners who discovered these hidden treasures often insisted the original wood burning capability should be maintained. In time, even the “natural fire” holdouts have often replaced wood with its smoke and messy ashes with clean gas fireplace logs for quick heat and low maintenance.
A gas fireplace in the kitchen is practical. It can be turned on and will instantly begin producing heat in the room. Your family will have a cheerful fire and a warm room to meet for breakfast, prepare lunches and be out the door.
If you think a gas fireplace in a bathroom is a luxury beyond your means, perhaps you haven’t looked at the new options available. The ambience of flames is a given but the instant warmth a small gas fireplace produces in a bathroom is pure comfort on a cold morning or to relax after a stressful day at work.
There may be nothing that is as practically luxurious as including a gas fireplace in your bathroom design. If remodeling your bath isn’t in the foreseeable future, you can still add a gas fireplace. Contemporary ventless designs offer all the features in a readymade fireplace that can be easily mounted on a wall.
Including a gas fireplace in a kitchen or bath remodel may be the best home improvement you can undertake – and one you will truly enjoy for years.
