Playing With Fire

We've made a few minor changes to our fireplace this season. Minor changes with huge benefits. And all the was required were two purchases! No power tools, drilling, hammering, etc. Easy stuff - pretty nice when that happens, right?
First, we bought a new fireplace screen last weekend. We purchased the mission studded fireplace screen from Restoration Hardware. The picture below is a "before" and is of our old screen. The screen came with the house. It was a tri-fold and stuck out about five inches. And it was ugly. At least in our humble opinions.

The new screen is a flat screen and it fits just over the opening for the fireplace. A near perfect fit. It gives us a lot more space in that area. Our second purchase was a new grate. It is designed more up and down than our old greate (sorry but I don't know the official terminology) and really keeps the smoke from filtering out of the fire box and into the house. Instead, the smoke filters up through the chimney. We had a big problem with the smoke smell last winter. It could really be overpowering at times. This helps so much! What a great investment!

The picture below shows the new screen and the new grate. Oh yeah - and the featured puppy is Shelby! She loves the fireplace.