Country living offers lots of advantages. Low traffic, clean air, and friendlier neighbours. But not all of us can hack it, so the next best option is to design a rustic feel in your urban home. If it’s a detached or semi-detached house, you can plant pretty flowers and vegetables, showing them off behind a cute picket fence. You can even install an old-school customised mail box, and put a ‘village-styled’ knocker on your door.
Sunset shades in your colour scheme are helpful. Something about those deep lilac, peach, and dusky hues make you think of a country parlour while crisper metallic hues denote city life. Another good way to imbue the rustic is to install in-built wood fireplaces in Sydney. Pick something with a brick-lined firebox because that instantly calls to mind a comfy cottage surrounded by trees, with a creek gurgling on the background.
Build a ‘stone wall’
Ordinarily, in-builts are ‘planted’ into a structural wall, so that’s very likely to be modern rather than natural stone or brick. But you can get around this by building your own firebox. It could be a pillar conveniently positioned and properly fitted with a chimney-style outlet for smoke, sparks, and potential emissions. The Axis EPI950 is a good candidate for this, because you can install it snugly into a pillar. The advantage of the self-made pillar is it’s not influenced by the design of the home or the orientation of existing walls.
You could install your fireplace with clean, frameless edges so it blends into the wall, then finish the outer edges of the pillar with slabs of natural stone. Pick a colour that matches your mood, whether it’s red bricks, white marble, or sandy limestone. Stone works well around a fireplace, because it’s not as prone to cracking as concrete, it won’t crumble, and it handles temperature well so it won’t get hot to the touch, even when the fire is lit.
Triple powered goodness
This three-sided fireplace has triple heating options – radiant heat from the viewing panel, accumulated heat from the brick inlay, and convection inside the firebox. It’s a French design, so you could decorate the rest of your living area with French knick knacks straight from the Riviera. If you’ve been there, you can recreate some of your favourite moods and elements. If not, seek inspiration from magazines or Pinterest. To make your room more unified, echo the natural stone trim in other parts of the living space.
You could replace your drab windowsills with stone overhangs, or tie in little stone accents on the floor. You can’t have a stone vase – that would probably be too heavy – but you can have little stone bowls and basins for decorative fruit, candy, or trinkets. Remember, just because they’re decorative doesn’t mean they’re not edible, so invite guests to help themselves from the sweets bowl, or grab an apple and offer it to them. This dash of rustic hospitality will make them feel quite at home, creating the right ambience for your décor.
For the perfect rustic fireplace finish, call Home Heat & BBQ today on 02 9838 1300.
