A fireplace is practical for winter warmth but it can also elevate your home décor. Here are fireplace ideas for a warm winter chic home.

Useful both as focal points and as practical essentials for winter warmth, fireplaces and wood-burning stoves create a homely atmosphere in any space. Here are ways to add one to yours.  

Fresh Take 

Brick is back – but only a touch. Counter the rustic texture and tone of a brick fireplace by surrounding it with smooth textures and earthy tones to keep it current. Draw the warm texture out of the alcove and into the room with velvet, linen and raw wood to create a modern sense of cosiness and comfort. 

Cool Cocoon

`Warmth’ often conjures up rich, dark colours – but if that’s simply not your style, don’t despair. Cool tones of cream, ivory and linen combined with light woods and gold accents can create the cocoon for a stand-out fireplace in a contrasting colour. Here, the arresting black stove is the ideal backdrop for a flickering orange flame.  

Decorator’s tip
Off-white colours come to life when combined with a rich texture, such as faux fur or a deep corduroy. This palette gives instant luxe-factor without too much effort.  

Modern classic

A vintage fireplace contrasts beautifully with clean lines and a bold take on colour and texture. Here, the confident juxtaposition of the delightful old fireplace – still showing off its ironwork and carved wooden mantel – with contemporary shades and decor, makes for a very attractive space.  

Decorator’s tip
It isn’t really possible to completely recreate the look and feel of a genuine vintage fireplace using only modern installations, but you could create the same sort of aesthetic by scouring markets for retro finds and steals, such as fireplace grates, bellows, pokers and brushes to set the scene. 

Compact and cosy

Many modern renovations keep the original fireplace intact, but opt to install a wood-burning stove in its centre and utilising the existing chimney as an outlet. Using a stove like this uses less wood, emits more heat and looks modern to match. Plaster the alcove smooth, or simply paint the brick for a shabby-chic feel.   

Decorator’s tip
Create a vignette around the fireplace by picking a wallpaper that conveys the style, whether that’s more modern or French country cosy. Add decor elements to connect the two spaces and you’ve got a nook that’s as pretty as a picture.  

Stone cool

A humble cottage in a picturesque country village – recently reworked as a weekend bolthole – includes a perfectly petite wood-panelled living room centred on a charming original fireplace. Says the interior designer owner, “I watch way too much TV when I am at home in town, and my daughter is always on her iPad, so we chose not to have any TV or WiFi here – it’s all about reading and playing board games.”  

Decorator’s tip

The wood panelling is painted in a warm heritage green (the precise shade is “Time and Again”, by Plascon), which helps create an intimate and inviting ambience, and sets off the slip-covered armchairs beautifully. The existing fireplace surround of ‘crazy paving’ stone tiles was left as is, and the fire screen was a lucky vintage find.  

Get a raise  

In the pair of new-build semi-detached homes they designed and built for their own young families, two friends – and architectural practice partners – have created a fresh take on contemporary domestic design.   

Their joint approach throughout is brilliantly practical as well as budget-friendly. For instance, placing the wood-burning stove in an open-plan living, dining and kitchen space on a raised built-in pedestal moves it out of reach of tiny hands as well as easing the process of adding logs to the flames.  

Decorator’s tip

The wood-burning heater was sourced from Calore; Chazelles manufacture similar styles. The kitchen shelves were inspired by the handmade shelving designed and made by South African architecture icon Gawie Fagan, his wife Gwen, and their children in the 1960s at their home, Die Es, in Cape Town.   

Sculpted style

Built especially for its design-obsessed owners, this spacious house is very much a home – “It’s important to us that [it] feels warm and welcoming,” they assert – as well as being a showcase for quantities of treasured collectibles and artworks. This living area includes a custom-designed, floor-to-ceiling steel fireplace and chimney that incorporates boldly scaled, integrated shelving that holds part of the owners’ large collection of ceramic pieces.  

Decorator’s tip

The unique fireplace and steel shelving units were specially designed for the space by Julian McGowan of Southern Guild. In the foreground is McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon, a drinks trolley created by Douglas & Company.  

Heart and soul

This old-school wood-burning stove is set in the centre of an open-plan living room, dining room and kitchen. This placement is ideal for large spaces, as it radiates heat around the fireplace plus its chimney pipe. Set on a simple brick platform, it draws the eye inwards from every corner of the expansive room.  

Contemporary chic

This light, airy, urban penthouse is both a celebration of modern design and a welcoming, easy-to-live-in home in the sky. Spacious, wrap-around balconies frame its adaptable, open-plan living space, which takes up the lower of the property’s two floors. A discreet touch of warmth is provided as needed by the sleek, contemporary wood-burning stove.  

Decorator’s tip
Similar stoves are available in both wood- and pellet-burning options from a variety of suppliers; Arada and Morso both make especially good ranges of clean-lined, contemporary designs. The minimalist dining table and chairs are all by South African designer and artist Gregor Jenkin.  

Corner unit  

Having taken the time (and done much of the work themselves) to painstakingly renovate this petite city home, the homeowners have subsequently taken a minimalist approach to decorating it. “We love classic pieces and rarely buy new things,” they say. One exception to the rule is the striking corner stove seen here, which makes just as much of a statement as the mid-century modern armchair and the bold artwork alongside it.  

Decorator’s tip

This fireplace is functional, of course, but it also has a distinctly sculptural presence: try Austroflamm or Spartherm for a selection of similar stoves. Or, consider something with even more retro appeal, such as a Stack ceramic stove from La Castellamonte The artwork is by Frank Schult.