Several years ago, we had rented one of the large entertainment centers that had an electric fireplace , and when we moved, we gave it back to the rental company. We have both missed it ever since, and Bobby and I both love the look of having a fireplace burning in the cold winter evenings. This house has a gas-fired furnace and vents, but we keep the thermostat down low, and then just add a little extra heat in whatever room we need it in , usually the living room. We kept thinking that we would somehow manage to save up enough money to just go and buy another electric fireplace, but it just never happened; so we decided to go back to the rental company and rent one again. If we had kept the one we had before, it would have been paid for by now. Rent-to-own is a lot more expensive than just buying outright; but it does allow people on a small fixed income to be able to actually own a more expensive piece of furniture. We spent most of this week shuffling furniture around and getting ready for the Friday delivery, and now I am really happy with the results of all that work. Here is what the new media console looks like with the "fire" turned on. It is just the fire effect; and the heat switch is off, so right now we are just getting the look of fire and no heat.
Very unusual Yvonne We have a fireplace where the stones light up with a flame effect, we never use it for heat, just for the look of it. Pleased to hear you are settled now and cosy again
When we had our house in Colorado, we had two gas fireplaces. One upstairs in a Den next to the Master Bedroom and the other in the Living Room downstairs. Only sat in the Den, with the fireplace on, once. Used the Living Room fireplace a couple of times and that was it. We now have a wood-burning fireplace in the living room of our apartment. We buy Fire Logs at Walmart, but don't even use this fireplace that much. But, when we do, it looks spectacular! Have a Fireplace Tool Set, bought at the Goodwill, that we have sitting next to the fireplace during our so-called winters. During Christmas, we don't use the fireplace because we put our Christmas tree up in front of it. It's the only place we can put it up. But, we put a strand of white Christmas lights around the top of the fireplace, behind the tree.
I have one of those electric fireplaces that is styled to look like a woodburning stove. I keep it in the bedroom, but I turn it on any chilly evening, because not only does it throw heat, it is very atmospheric. I love the display. It can surprisngly heat up the room too. I usually have to keep it on low, or it will get too warm in there. The dislay is so pretty though. I might bring it out into the living room because I love the display, and I have another unit I can use in the bedroom.
That is how we feel about having the fireplace "look", too. Even when we do not want any extra heat, just turning it on and watching the look of a fireplace is comfortable and relaxing. While having a real fireplace, either wood or gas, would be nice; this is probably the easiest for us. The house does have gas heat; but it goes to the outside furnace, so we would have to completely wire the house for another gas line before we could have a gas fireplace, and then we would also have to buy the fireplace, and those are even more expensive that the littl electric ones are. We only had an old television stand that was supposed to be temporary anyway; so now we have both the nice television stand and the fireplace as well. We also hooked up the stereo, and it is working with the television speakers when on DirectTV; but not when I turn on Apple Tv, which is where I want it to work. With Apple TV, we can play our iTunes music and also Pandora or Spotify; so having the good Denon Speakers working for music is much more important than having it for some TV show. Robin came over this weekend, and she said we need an optical digital cable to make it work; so I have ordered one from Amazon. Hopefully, I can get it hooked up like she said to do, and then we will have awesome music. @Ina I. Wonder gave Bobby some CD's of older music; but the only CD player that we had was the little portable one that he uses out in his shop. Now, we can also play those on the Denon stereo, so we can enjoy that music also.
Sound wonderful @Yvonne Smith, but where's the pictures to show us? I want to see! I've got to move my livingroom around for the cold weather, and then I can watch my fireplace one more season. We paid less than $700 back about 15 years ago a gas fireplace, and I can spend hour staring at it.