We should really go out to Talkeetna, there’s dancing at the Fairview, but it’s so cozy here by the fireplace!
After at least 10 days of non-stop 20 below zero, all we want to do is snuggle up by the fire. We’ve been working on a small re-model project over in the studio, forcing us outside more than necessary, wrestling rigid air hoses with frozen fingers.
Our fireplace is based on a design developed in the 1790’s by Count Rumford. It’s a tall, shallow fireplace with widely angled covings to better radiate heat, as you can see the logs are stood up on their ends to burn. Rumford fireplaces were common when Count Rumford first wrote about them, Jefferson had them built at Monticello. Tom & I collected the rocks for our chimney from all over Alaska, our friend Brian put it all together during the restoration - we knew we wanted something dramatic to look at in the great room downstairs (no TV in this house!).
I think I remember Dave Kirsch telling me that they heated with oil when the house was first built in the 1940’s & 50’s. The next family to live here, Spurlin, must have put in the wood stoves both on the main floor and down below in the crawl space. Now we have this fireplace in the full basement, a woodstove on the main floor, and oil heat for the back-up radiators in each room and the in-floor heat downstairs. We try to keep the wood fires burning all winter to reduce our oil consumption, all the rocks in the chimney heat up and it’s cozy in most of the rooms - but it is an old house after all, and there are some spots where the cold creeps in.
Maybe we’ll compromise - turn up the music in the house and dance our own steps by the blazing fireplace…
