So you’ve decided to open up your floorplan, perhaps eyeing a great room design for your kitchen, dining area and living room.
What will be the centre of attention?
For many living areas, a fireplace is the natural focal point for a living room or great room. Whether simple and elegant, channelling clean lines and sleek materials, or traditional, with a large mantle and built-in bookcases, a fireplace creates a setting where you’ll gather with family, enjoy movie night, and yes, even hang those stockings for Santa.
So whether you’ll be adapting an existing fireplace or starting from scratch, you’ll have some key points to consider, notes Azucena Saavedra Onuszkanycz, Sr. Interior Architectural Designer and Design Centre Manager with MAC Renovations.
- Scale – If your existing fireplace sits in a single small room, opening up your layout may require expanding your fireplace design, too, so that it suits the new, larger space. Some may choose a floor-to-ceiling tile treatment, for example, or flank the fireplace surround with built-in shelving. Depending on the new floorplan, repositioning the fireplace may be necessary, too.
- Style – If you’re transforming an older home to a contemporary design, chances are your fireplace will need to be transformed too, as the red brick surround or gold-trimmed fireplace box will definitely be out of place. As a focal point, all eyes will be on the fireplace, and you don’t want them looking for the wrong reason! The surround is a great tool in changing the overall feel – think large-scale tile or custom stone for a more modern space, traditional tile or wood for a more classic design, or transitional tiles for a more timeless look.
- Type of fireplace – Different kinds of fireplaces have different Building Code requirements, which affect the design choices you can make, Onuszkanycz explains. A wood- or gas-burning fireplace, for example, requires a certain amount of distance between it and combustable material, like a mantle. An electric fireplace doesn’t have those same restrictions so offers more design flexibility, but won’t provide as much heat as a wood- or gas-burning fireplace will.
- The TV – Unless you have a separate TV room, you’ll need to decide where to put the television. Some opt to place it above the fireplace – easier if you’re choosing an electric model, Onuszkanycz notes. “Because we have those clearances to consider, the TV height above a traditional fireplace and mantle will be quite high, so we need to keep that top of mind.”
If there’s space beside the fireplace, and you have the depth available, custom shelving can be a great way to house the TV and hide the electronics and cables. And for those opting for a wall-mounted TV, but don’t want to look at it all the time, a retractable or hinged panel can keep it out of sight when not in use.
To learn more about the possibilities for your living space, visit macreno.com or call the design team today at
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