Friday, January 30, 2009

fire and ice

Here are some pictures of the icy, snowy world at my red house.
You may remember this post? I live in those red and white images!

We have had lots of snow and lots of cold!! Somewhere under the drifts of knee deep snow is the ice rink with the torn plastic!!! *frown*
The kids have been working on their annual igloo.

This is actually a 4 rail high stacked pioneer fence. You can see in the photo above that in different places you can see 3 rails, 2 rails, or in some spots only the top rail, depending on how the winds made it all settle to then be frozen.

Step inside for a warm night by the hearth! Our fireplace has been burning 24/7 since late October. We do also use the furnace but the fireplace keeps the house pretty cozy. We spend all our time in this part of the house in the winter. When in bed, we are under plenty of warm quilts.
The quest all spring, summer and fall is to seek out, gather, split and stack firewood!! We burn a LOT of wood.
The fireplace is rather unusual because it is open on two sides like an L shape, front (living room) and side (dining room). The fireplace and brick wall is central in the house with an open planning type room arrangement. The main hearth is raised to just above knee height and the fireplace is even higher yet (about 28 inches from the floor). The kitchen is on the back side of the fireplace. The brick wall in the kitchen has nothing against it and it stays very hot and the bricks radiate the heat. My cat sleeps near the brick wall in the kitchen in a brass doll bed with comfy little mattress. She is so spoiled!


The fire plays neat tricks with reflections at night and fools you into thinking there are fires in a couple of different places to keep you warm. This is the reflection in the mirror on my wallpapered wall. I painted the mirror to mimic the wallpaper.

This is how the fire looks as reflected in the big windowed wall across from the fireplace.
The kids often will sit with a cuddly quilt and just watch the flames reflect in the glass at night. It is a mesmerizing setting. The crackling noises of the burning logs are very soothing, too.
I love Winter!
Some memorable ice day time and fire night time photos.

4 comments:

Loretta said...

Amy, what a lovely house you live in! I love older houses. Ours is only 18 years old. I love your fireplace; we have an un-plugged gas one. The gas was too expensive to heat, so we want to turn it into electric. We're allergic to wood smoke, plus we have a burning by-law here in the city; we cannot do it. I love those snowflakes too...You sure have a lot of snow!

a portland granny said...

What a cozy home and your pictures were wonderful!

Anonymous said...

Weell, this is exactly why I left Ohio! Looking at all that cold snow makes me shiver! Someday, you must buy poor Bill an electric fireplace!! ha-ha!
Love,
Suzette

Charity Grace said...

I so love a fireplace. I also love living in a warm climate as I do, but the downside is that there is really no need for a fireplace...Well, maybe 3 nights out of the year...Some of my best childhood memories are of sitting in front of the fire on a cold day.