Tuesday, March 8, 2011

FAUX pas

long beach apartments/homes have a weird "style" obsession with faux fireplaces.  i see them EVERYWHERE and i don't get it.  either have a real fireplace or don't have one at all!  mine has a pipe, which i'm assuming gas might have come through at one time, but now the whole thing is just a design eyesore.  i've been trying to figure out what to do with this baby since i moved in.  it's not a masterpiece yet, but we're finally getting somewhere.

meet Ace Hardware's Arabian Nights:
it's a dark, charcoal grey.  we love it.  it's still in need of something but at least we're moving in the right direction.

maybe something like this brass number by architect, alla kazovsky

some logs HALF way up.....

or maybe just some nice big floor pillows when extra company stops by....

who knows.  the actual fireplace "space" is quite shallow so if i put anything in it, it can't be too large.

3 comments:

Leopold Stotch said...

I filled mine with a rather mod, almost fake looking log I found and a row/rack of candles, all in a very minimal/sparse style.
Works conceptually (at least with the idea of fire/light) and it looks great.
I'm not sure if it's the case with the Long Beach houses but the fireplace in my Craftsman (Echo Park) the internal chimney is cracked (and would cost several thousand to fix) and so its more or less off limits for fire. In some of the houses I've seen with that issue they've just cemented over the opening.

¡Fräulein! said...

love the idea! i'm going to try and make one too. i've had so many different things in there throughout our time here but i really enjoy the glow of candles. and i'm sure our chimney is busted. old house i live in....but i'm still puzzled why these babies are ALL OVER this town. fad of the times perhaps?
thanks again for the idea.

Leopold Stotch said...

No problem ¡Fräulein!
BTW my educated guess would be the fact that we're in a heavy earthquake zone and bricks and earthquakes don't mix so well. Hence why you see so few brick buildings on the west coast and when you do they're retrofitted to the tits with iron bars and reinforcing.
Plus I'm sure a lot of these older houses were built before seismology was taken seriously or proper zoning laws went into effect and over the years (and many earthquakes later) have started to severely crack internally.

Anyway my 2 cents. Good luck with your fireplace!