A fireplace is a symbol of home comfort and warmth. This interior element can often be seen today in luxury mansions and luxury apartments. An elegant English fireplace in the interior of rooms looks especially advantageous, because it emphasizes the status of the house and indicates its respectability. A room with a fireplace will become a favorite place for the owners of the house and their guests.
The English style is perhaps the most aristocratic design direction. It is characterized by restraint, sophistication and elegance. In interiors decorated in this way, there is no unnecessary tinsel that brings disharmony into the space. Everything here is orderly, but such stiffness does not seem excessive.
The houses of English aristocrats were always decorated with fireplaces. Today, such interior elements can be found in spacious country houses, luxurious mansions and luxury apartments. Elegant English style fireplaces will appeal to true aesthetes who are accustomed to surrounding themselves with standard beauty. The English style can be considered a type of classic, but it allows some “liberties” that cannot be embodied in the canonical design. For example, in such interiors you can experiment with color, because the color scheme of the style is an order of magnitude broader than the classical one.
As evidenced photo of a fireplace in English style, this element of the interior requires appropriate framing. The area where the fireplace is located should be elegant, luxurious and cozy at the same time. The English style does not flaunt wealth, but in every detail one feels the luxury inherent in the royal era. The spirit of history hovers in such an interior.
Elegant English style fireplace carries a special philosophical message. Such a zone will emphasize that traditions and family values are important to the owners of the house. The fireplace room will become a favorite place for the owners of an apartment or mansion and their guests. Everything here is conducive to relaxation: calm colors, precise lines, thoughtful lighting, comfortable furniture and, of course, the crackling of wood in the fireplace. Just as carefully as the interior of fireplace rooms, you should choose the design of hookah rooms, because the hookah room should be conducive to relaxation and contemplation.
An English fireplace in the interior of a house is the main decoration of the room
It is generally accepted that the progenitor of modern fireplaces is English. Such an interior element actually appeared for the first time in Foggy Albion. This design was developed specifically to emphasize the luxury of houses belonging to aristocrats. In a modern interpretation English style in fireplace design is still manifested through an abundance of decorative elements that create a certain atmosphere of solemnity. At the same time, English fireplaces are associated with comfort; they are not characterized by palace pretentiousness.
The portals of classic English fireplaces are usually made of marble, wood, and stone. Natural materials create a special harmony in the fireplace area. When decorating a room with a fireplace, it is worth considering the presence of themed accessories. For example, a forged firewood will add exquisite charm to the composition. On the mantelpiece you can place a richly decorated clock, gold candlesticks, and family photographs in elegant frames.
It should be remembered that English fireplace in the interior In addition to its functional role, it also performs a decorative function. That is why the fireplace area, designed in the English style, should not be overloaded with details, because this can disrupt the spatial harmony. The furniture for such a room should be elegant and at the same time comfortable, because here, without a doubt, the family will spend more than one evening, and it is important that everyone feels comfortable. Presented in this section photo of an English fireplace demonstrate how such a design transforms the interior of a room. Aristocratic fireplaces can rightfully be considered a work of art.
Having a fireplace in a house, cottage or country house always means comfort, a special atmosphere and aesthetics. In addition, a fireplace is installed not only to improve the home, but also as an additional source of heat, which is especially important in central Russia. As for the design of fireplaces, today more and more people prefer the classics: English or American.
Elegance and practicality
A classic fireplace made from high-quality expensive materials looks fundamental, respectable and luxurious. Designers offering such projects note that this English style is suitable for rooms with large areas. It doesn’t have to be a mansion - today you can also make a real fireplace in an apartment with good square footage. This design will look original, attract attention and connect the entire interior of the apartment together.
In your home or cottage, a room with a fireplace will become a kind of relaxation and gathering place for all household members, as well as guests.
Elegant style plays an important role here - it is in such an environment, according to psychologists, that the mind and heart find harmony, and the body relaxes and rests.
English style is also true practicality: no unnecessary details and functional surfaces. You can put various decor on the fireplace, the same bronze clock, figurines, photo frames or candles in glass glasses.
Types and features
A classic American or English fireplace can be purchased ready-made or built from scratch. The first option is usually used for city apartments, and the second for mansions and cottages. In addition, the room may not allow the installation of a structure with real firewood and a chimney, so you can purchase an analogue. It will perform a decorative function.
There are the following types of fireplaces for the hall:
- Wood-burning: They serve not only as decoration, but also as a heating system. They are heated with coal or wood, and have a classic portal and chimney structure. The most suitable materials for their manufacture are stones, bricks, and ceramics.
- Cassette: with a wood firebox, they work using the circulation of air masses inside a special structure. Such a fireplace can be made of brick, natural stone, marble, or plaster. The advantage of this design is its low cost, but the disadvantage is that it does not retain heat when the wood stops burning. In addition, the door gets quite hot.
- Gas (biofireplaces): consist of a portal and a burner. The cast iron rectangular burner has several holes for mounting and air intake. It can have automatic or manual control. This design transfers heat well and perfectly imitates a flame.
- Electrical: imitation of a real fireplace, powered by a regular outlet.
- False fireplaces: decorative structures, inside of which there may be, for example, wax or electronic candles.
If you choose a traditional fireplace, which needs to be created from scratch at the stage of building a house, then you should take into account one main nuance regarding the order. Strict adherence to it will allow the stove to be laid out with high quality and in compliance with all standards, including safety.
A simple classic order is good for brick.
It can be changed at will. But before you start laying, it’s worth making a drawing on a piece of paper in a checkered pattern, observing the dimensions of the firebox. This type of installation is as follows: a cubic-shaped portal on a low pedestal, then there is a so-called window sill, and higher on several “steps” there is a chimney.
The order is angular and English. The first option looks quite large and such a fireplace is most often installed not indoors, but on the terrace. The second option has a trapezoidal shape, a straight chimney and an open stove. The listed methods differ from each other in complexity, the shape of the portals and chimneys and the amount of materials used.
Interior use
The classic design requires a lot of free space, and you also need to take into account all the proportions when installing it. The room should be well lit, the central portal visible from any angle. Another rule is that the higher the ceiling, the larger the fireplace should be so that the proportions of the room are not distorted.
Today, designers can fit an American or English fireplace into almost any style.
By the way, these two types differ from each other, rather, in architecture than in materials: stone, marble or brick in England is laid in strict lines with imitation of columns and a harmonious simple pattern. In America they use stone, brick, and wood with elements of Art Nouveau, Baroque, and Neoclassical.
If we talk about the architecture of premises, apartments and houses, today ascetic high-tech dominates, but the listed designs can also be successfully integrated into this style. Modern standards recommend creating fireplaces that combine stone and metal, wood and mosaics, tiles and cast-iron fireboxes, strict shapes, columns and bright colors. Such options will perfectly complement the interior and attract all the attention.
For example, in a large, bright room with dark wood beams on the ceiling and colonial windows, a fireplace with white stone trim, narrow rectangular simple columns and a smooth surface would look appropriate. As decoration, you can put a ceramic pot with a flower, glass vases in a minimalist style, or a mantel clock on it. Faded silk rugs, distressed leather furniture, wooden cabinets and metal, bronze or cast iron details will all complement the look.
A fireplace in the Rococo style can look great in a home with an interesting design and futuristic notes: high ceilings, white walls, upholstered furniture with an unusual round shape, metal decorative items.
Strict marble in decoration echoes minimalism: smooth gray plain walls, white baseboards and doors, laconic furniture.
Even in such an environment, a luxurious marble fireplace looks appropriate.
Another option is a traditional room design with a British-style fireplace: beige shades of walls and furnishings, a stone fireplace portal and light columns, splashes of wine-colored decor, English furniture. On the sides of the structure, you can place open bookcases in the same style and color as the fireplace, so that the wall looks solid. Such a room is more like an office (like, for example, Sherlock Holmes), but in a modern interpretation the room can also serve other functions: be a room for relaxation or receiving guests.
Fireplaces created in the English style have beautiful wooden finishes, wrought-iron grilles, and excellent quality internal elements. This type of fireplace consists of a front part with an arch, a mantelpiece, and a recessed firebox. Fireplaces in England were lined with expensive types of wood and natural stone. The classic type of fireplace is an open flame. The cast iron from which the firebox is made does not burn out, and the chimney will perfectly pull out all the excess. All decorative elements are made by hand. These include bas-reliefs, statues, and wood carvings.
The crackle of wood in the firebox and the pleasant play of flames. What could be better for rest and relaxation? After a hectic day, you want to calm down and relax. Look at the flames, stir the ash and delve into the world of the last century.
Each example of this style is a masterpiece. Everything that has survived to this day is simply incredible in scope and aesthetics. Even in past centuries, not everyone could afford a fireplace. This is a very expensive pleasure. Today it is expensive, and this is an element of prestige. A status item that serves as an indicator of your level. Just like an expensive painting or piece of jewelry. They boast about this to guests, but it also creates an atmosphere of comfort in the house.
English style fireplace surround
English fireplaces resemble, rather, an arch with shelves and decorative elements. Creating a natural English style requires the skill of a professional designer. But the result is an indescribable range of sensations. Powerful and calm forms are suitable for both the office and the living room. When placing it in a room, all attention is focused on it. It becomes the center of space. A gathering place for all family members.
If you decide to decorate your home in dark colors, then an English fireplace will come in handy. This is a wonderful example of style and taste. Dark tones of natural wood and luxurious cladding will create a unique interior and will suit classic and simple interiors. It will become the main accent of the interior. Its highlight. Marble alternative.
This luxury is not for everyone. Expensive. You can replace expensive types of wood with marble cladding. For this purpose, marble floor slabs are used. This requires some skill. Such jewelry work can only be entrusted to a professional. A wooden frame is placed along the edge of the marble cladding. It is made to order and decorated with decorative carvings. Of course, this is not a completely correct English fireplace, but the style is maintained correctly.
The main goal when installing a fireplace is the comfort of the room, which increases several times as soon as it is flooded. The smell of wood and pleasant warmth will warm anyone. They will turn cold evenings into a pleasant pastime.
Every country has its own national characteristics of space design. Yes, we can all buy Italian furniture or German appliances for our home. But at the same time, we will choose such furnishings that correspond to our national sense of beauty. Let's take a look into the British kitchen!
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On the picture:
Kitchen in English. Like “island” fashion, English cuisine is full of paradoxes. Traditional in appearance, it hides modern technology in its depths; owners may rarely cook and receive guests, but the cabinets contain dozens of shelves and drawers, racks and hangers for dishes for all occasions. Many people don’t remember the tradition of five o’clock tea drinking, but the huge stove is equipped with a pair of ovens and a bunch of burners, one of which is reserved for a kettle.
Signs of British cuisine
Everything is just real. If British cooking can hardly be called an example of high art, then English cuisine is an example of following traditions and a true conservative. English-style cuisine wins fans by turning to the past and playing at recreating history. The interior of an English-style kitchen does not strike the eye with its extravagant shape or colors. The English style in the kitchen interior suggests advantages of a different kind. The British love everything “real”, made from natural materials: durable solid wood furniture with carved elements, stone and wooden tabletops, ceramic sinks, shiny cast handles and good porcelain and silverware. A kitchen like this can be safely passed on by inheritance, because such materials last a long time and age beautifully.
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On the picture:
The interior of a kitchen in the English style is conservative; natural materials are preferred here; the furniture is made conscientiously, using manual labor.
Symmetry + gigantomania. Typically, the interior of a kitchen in the English style is built according to the principles of symmetry, beloved in architectural neoclassicism. Even in everyday life, island residents like to cook on the “island” - a large table in the center of the kitchen with a hanging shelf above it, and the hearth area is marked with a “niche” decorated with a carved pediment with a huge hood on top and cabinets on the sides. In general, English-style kitchen design does not tolerate cramping. Here they do not save space, and the equipment is not compact in size - the ceramic sink, stove and hood are clearly XXL in size. The characteristic “characters” of the kitchen environment are a large buffet with an abundance of drawers, cabinets of different sizes, open shelves for home porcelain and silver, stands for bottles and spices, a massive table. A special place in the English kitchen is given to the stove - usually free-standing, with several ovens and half a dozen burners, above which a large hood is hung.
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On the picture:
From time immemorial, not a single English kitchen could do without a kitchen stove - the photos demonstrate the British commitment to tradition. Today, a kitchen oven is sometimes replaced by a large stove with several ovens.
Important Details
Decor and accessories. Kitchen design in the English style is unthinkable without accessories. Numerous shelves and stands hold a lot of necessary and not so little things: jars with seasonings brought from travels, vases and candlesticks, beautiful ceramic dishes, gravy boats and milk jugs, cutting boards for cutting food, antique brass and copper trinkets, family porcelain, a collection of teapots.
Accessories that support the English style in the kitchen interior.
Decorative details are also borrowed from the “classics”: Victorian kitchens are lavishly decorated with cornices with cornices, pilasters and magnificent Corinthian brackets. Models in the Regency style are more strict and balanced in proportions. And the light-colored facades of Edwardian furniture have barely noticeable decorative carvings.
For cabinets, oak, pine, and mahogany are used, both in their usual form and aged with imitation of traces of bugs and cracks. An English-style kitchen, as a rule, is made in the “natural” color of wood or is offered with facades painted in cream, milky, mustard, blue, gray, green and their shades. Bright colors are not welcome, however, neither are too dark ones.
The walls in an English kitchen are more reminiscent of a living room - tiles are laid only near the stove and sink, and even then not always. The remaining surfaces are decorated with wooden panels and
The history of the modern English fireplace, like much of the late architecture of Great Britain, can be divided into three conventional periods - Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian.
We will not now turn to the period of the Tudors and Stuarts, when fireplaces were huge and heated entire halls of medieval castles, because they were all built of rough stone, had a fairly laconic decor and served two purposes - heating and cooking.
In small houses these were smaller fireplaces with a similar structure. Such fireplaces belong to the modern “chalet” type and we will not dwell on them in detail.
More interesting is the evolution of the English fireplace as an art object. Therefore, we will begin with the Georgian era, which includes the interval from 1714 to 1837, including the Regency era and the reigns of Georges I, II, III and IV, after whom it is, in fact, named.
Fireplaces of this period were still large in size and, as a rule, were designed to completely heat the entire room. To solve this problem, fireplaces were made with grandiose fireboxes and numerous cast-iron grate registers so that warm air was distributed evenly throughout the room.
The fireboxes were lined with hardwood panels or marble portals. The distinctive Georgian antique fireplace features wrought iron grates and a wood or marble portal decorated with relief. Stylistically, this is usually strict classicism.
The end of this period saw the development of English ceramics, so some fireplaces are decorated with ceramic elements, such as the typical Georgian fireplace in the classical style with Wedgwood porcelain bas-reliefs on the portal.
In 1837, the Victorian era began, which became the period of greatest flowering of science, arts and crafts in Great Britain. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were patrons of the arts and were the largest philanthropists of their era. The Victorian period lasted 64 years and was the longest reign of a single monarch in British history.
Fireplaces from this period can be divided into two main substyles: early and mid Victorian and late Victorian.
Early and mid-period Victorian fireplaces were very richly decorated. They clearly show the influence of Baroque and Rococo, which did not receive much development in Great Britain (with the exception, perhaps, of Thomas Chippendale and William Hogarth, as the only representatives of this style in Great Britain) and at some point mixed with Neo-Gothic, but nevertheless, which had a certain influence on the formation of visual motifs in English art.
In the decoration of early Victorian fireplaces, intricate reliefs and floral decorations echo, cupids and roses, intricate ornaments and asymmetrical lines of the design appear on the panels. It was during this period that ceramics and ceramics began to be actively used in fireplace mantles. tiles , covered with complex relief or painting.
Tiles from this period have a rich and saturated palette, allowing you to obtain very interesting color solutions.
It should be noted that Victorian designs have proven popular with modern fireplace manufacturers who draw inspiration from original Victorian ideas.
In the middle and late Victorian era, the decor of fireplaces became stricter, the style became more geometric, and the lines became simpler. Plain majolica tiles began to be used more often, surrounded by the same laconic portals made of wood or cast iron. However, Victorian antique fireplaces, with their floral and geometric patterns or late Victorian laconicism, are models for modern craftsmen.
By 1890, Art Nouveau, which we, in particular, wrote about in our article, broke out as a bright star all over the world "Modern Ceramics". This style spans the late Victorian and Edwardian period until about 1914. In Great Britain, Art Nouveau is closely associated with the English movement "Arts and Crafts", which we also wrote about in our article of the same name, although the movement itself has its origins in Pre-Raphaelitism.
Art Nouveau became a revolutionary movement in the history of design. It was an exciting time for fireplace manufacturers: never before had they seen such outstanding and bold ideas, never before had so many new projects been created, never before had there been such outrageous design solutions.
Pottery from the Art Nouveau period fits easily into Victorian and Georgian fireplaces, which very organically incorporate floral and plant motifs, as well as the stylized flowing curvilinear shapes of the Art Nouveau style. This was an entire era in the history of design, which many art historians classify as a kind of “bridge” between historical neo-classicism and modernism.
The Edwardian period in the history of the English fireplace is characterized by the active use of tiles in fireplace linings and the combination of ceramics and cast iron. We can say that this is the main characteristic of an Edwardian fireplace.
Edwardian cast iron fireplaces became taller and slimmer. Solid tile panels are used, which have become very popular, despite the simpler designs and reliefs.
After 1920, English fireplace design was influenced by the concept of "simplicity" of the Arts and Crafts movement: cast iron was replaced by local materials from the area in which the fireplace was made, especially before the outbreak of the World Wars, when the demand for cast iron increased significantly for the needs of war production.
Therefore, the end of the Edwardian era in fireplaces is characterized by a large number of brick, wood, tile and even copper portals, and their inherent high decorativeness is determined, for the most part, by high-quality carvings and interesting luminous colors of majolica glazes.
