Giving your fireplace an ultimate facelift with mosaic art
The autumn season usually marks the ending of any type of redecorations and home interior reconstructions among other things, with one small but meaningful exception — fireplace. The autumn season is actually the best season for treating your good ole fireplace with a fabulous facelift (I say this in my best Ruel Paul voice)!
Considering the fact that the first fireplaces as such were developed in medieval times when someone thought of chimneys as a solution for carrying away smoke. Soon enough experiences showed that the well-known rectangular for was superior, that a particular depth was most suitable, that an iron grate provided the needed draft, and that splayed fireplace cheeks enhanced reflection of heat. Those charming early fireplaces were usually made of stone and brick, and carved wooden mantles.
Since the 15th century and maybe even a bit earlier, a slab of cast iron was developed as a fireback to protect the fireplace wall from the intense heat. These were usually heavily decorated and ornamented. In the later centuries, the fireback was less and less used, until it finally gave way to the firebrick.
The usage of the firebrick enabled a variety of decorations, so although today’s fireplaces kept their original form, they look much more imaginative than their predecessors. Considering the fact that the open fireplace is the oldest in-house heating and cooking invention it is no wonder that soon enough people begun decorating it with mosaic artwork as one of the oldest art forms out there.
Mosaic fireplaces are by far the most beautiful types of fireplaces on the market. They are created by applying mosaic artwork to the surrounding fireplace face. Because of the intense heat, the best fireplace mosaic materials for the hearth of the fireplace are the hard ones, such as porcelain tiles and a variety of stones. As for the fireplace surround, it can be mosaiced with a large variety of materials like glass tiles and many others.
Aside from being simply gorgeous and captivating, mosaic fireplaces are also easy to maintain. Wooden frames that have to be polished and coated with lacquer almost every year if you want them to look tidy. Iron frames darken with time and end up looking dry and boring. With mosaic, you can be sure that you will have a neat and attention-grabbing artwork for decades.
Mosaic art will never get old, boring, or dingy and it can be swiftly cleaned and refreshed, so if you are thinking of embellishing your fireplace, mosaic is the way to go.
