Do you have a hearth area in front of your fireplace? In front of each of ours, Mel laid the unglazed ceramic tile. Even though we have gas logs and there is no mess, I still like the hearth. I think it adds to the look of the fireplace and makes it look more like a real wood burning one. We have brick on the walls around each fireplace too which I think adds to the traditional look. I would have loved one to have been stone though.

Our familyroom fireplace has a wonderful hearth. It's brick and raised up. We sit on it sometimes. Our livingroom fireplace just has a little slate hearth in front. It's not raised and is just flush with the carpeting.

All of ours are only slightly raised. I wish they were raised more so that we could sit on them. Would be a great homey touch.

We don't have a fireplace but my parents do and I love theirs. You can sit on either side of the fireplace. It's so cozy!

Our hearth is brick. When we redo the current floor (tile) I would like to do something special around the hearth to make the whole fireplace more of a focal point.

We have a wood burner fire which has a flat hearth, almost level with the carpet. I have a set of brass fire tools on the hearth and also our 3 terracotta warriors that we brought back from a visit to China.
I do love those big high ones that you can sit on though.

Sigh. No fireplace as I live in an apartment. But my parents have a small black slate-ish hearth. I have a friend who owns an old house (circa mid-1700's in the older section, early 1800's in the 'new' section) with a wonderful stone fireplace and hearth. It's an actual working fireplace from the 1700's and she teaches open hearth cooking classes there. I love it. If I ever got a chance to have a fireplace, I'd definitely would have one where I can do hearth cooking in it.

That sounds wonderful. I can only imagine open hearth cooking. Wow!

We have a tiny flat hearth. Not really very pretty so we made a fireplace screen to dress up our fireplace a bit.

I keep meaning to get at least one of those decorative fireplace screens to put up during the warm weather to dress up the living room fireplace a bit when it's not being used.

Open hearth cooking is a lot of work but a lot of fun. I'm lucky in the fact there's a historical site that allows people to actually take hearth cooking classes in it. (Well, there's another one near me that does demos but the only people allowed to do the actual cooking are the volunteers who've been through orientation for safety reasons. Easy enough, just have to actually do that. :wiggly: )

But if you're interested in trying some recipes out (and have a fireplace/hearth where you have some room), try a book called "Magic of Fire". It not only gives you recipes, it defines some terminology, such as the "level" of heat a fire gives off at various stages. It's really neat.

Sounds like interesting reading even if you don't hearth cook. Thank you.

You're welcome. I think the book would useful even if you're interested in cooking over any sort of fire, i.e. grills, bbq, campfires, etc., although it was written for hearth cooking. There's a website for it, done by the author but I can't remember the name of it. That has some interesting info on it too.