The March edition of BBC Good Homes features an article about a couple with three young children who redesigned their Edwardian home in South London.  As well as replacing several ceilings and adding a basement they refitted three bathrooms one of which includes a waterproof TV fitted into the wall at the end of the bath! (I like their style).  They put in a Fireplace into their master bedroom which is from The Gallery Collection.  It is the Asquith in Limestone with the Crown cast Iron insert and gas fire (shown on page 65).

The March edition of BBC Good Homes has some great advice on revamping bedrooms, decluttering homes and how to to use the latest colours (blues, greens and pinks).  Also room makeovers, budgets buys and best home buys.    One of the features is the House of the Month owned and built by Sarah and Colin Knightley. Its a fantastic open plan bungalow in Devon which they built in 2006 after demolishing the original property.  Sarah has created a cosy interior at the same time as using contemporary light and neutral colours and to re-create the look in her living room (shown on page 57) you can choose the Gallery Tiger Plus Stove from £540.

The traditional Cast Iron Fireplace will never go out of fashion, and if you fancy one for your home you can get a fantastic deal on the Gallery Fireplaces Palmeston 48” Full Polished Cast Iron.

EDF Energy has announced it was cutting tariffs by up to 12.5% for electricity customers.

The reduction will affect 2.3 million of its customers, with an average change of 8.8% from March 31.

The move follows recent price cuts from e.on, British Gas and Scottish and Southern Energy.

EDF Energy said the price cut applied to standard rate electricity customers in London, the South East, South West, Wales and Scotland.

Gallery Electric fire options include the standard inset fire options (example below)

The Electric Firebasket options (example below)

And an electric option for all the traditional arched cast iron insets and combination fireplaces (see example of a combination fireplace place)

If you are looking for a Fireplace bargin this Jan/Feb then Gallery have even more offerings! So visit your local Gallery Fireplaces dealer and ask about the offer on Fire Baskets, Valencia , Centric, Kensington and Swans Nest.

If you are hunting for a Fireplace bargin this Jan/Feb then Gallery have some offerings, so visit your local dealer and ask about the Marseilles, Palladio, Henlow, Lyon and Milano offers.

If you are hunting for a Fireplace bargin this Jan/Feb then Gallery have some offerings, so visit your local dealer and ask about the Fulham offer.

There is no doubt about it, a fireplace will enhance your living room, dining room or bedroom as a focal point. The question is does it add value? Expert New York designers from design 2 share say it does. In fact Irwin & Nicola love the Fireplace and say that putting fireplaces throughout the home aids in the sale of the home, and to ad most value make sure you put in a fireplace that suits the decor and is in a family room.

Christmas is made perfect when you are sitting by a real open fire with the family and when your relaxing on your own after the festivities finishing off the mulled wine, but can you tell the difference between gas and real burning coal?

My friends can’t, we enjoyed a relaxing drink by the river yesterday in a kind of romantic old pub with big woodern fireplaces and cast iron tiled inserts with gas fires inside. I popped off to the toilet and four friends (and one husband) started up the conversation of how wonderful a real fire is and a gas fire is simply no comparison and could never look as good as these fires.  I then pointed out the gas pipe at the side!

When buying a Fireplace there are two kinds of customer, one is looking for crisp, precise, consistent colour to compliment specific decor, and, the other (like me) would prefer a piece of history to compliment home.

To me the beauty of natural stone lies within the history that forms it.  Each piece of natural stone is unique to another. Limestone is a sedimentary rock primarily made of the mineral calcite CaC03 (here comes the science bit) which originates from the floor bed of tropical seas and turns into stone by the accumulation of the constituent grains of calcite and marine sealife.  Most limestone is formed with the help of living organisms, when the organisms die their shells and bones settle to the seafloor.  Over millions of years, these sediments of shells, sand and mud harden into limestone - your limestone fireplace is millions of years old and is made up of fossils! how cool it that! 

If you choose to buy a limestone fireplace you do need to be realistic about colour and consistency.  The legs and mantel shelf of your Gallery Fireplaces are colour matched as close as possible and at point of production any legs and mantel shelves with large fossils  (i.e 10 pence size or larger)  are generally rejected, but tiny fossils will be inevitable - to me that is the beauty of natural stone!