Styling Your Living Room Around a Gas Fireplace

Arrange Your Space to Maximize Design and Comfort

If you’re incorporating a gas fireplace into your living room, you’re already adding warmth—both from a style perspective and the benefit of supplemental heating. Even a sleek, contemporary design adds a welcoming glow. And what’s more stylish than enjoying a cozy fire without the mess, smoke, and ash of a wood-burning fireplace?

Here are the tips designers follow to make a gas fireplace the focal point of the space.

Create Comfort

Position furniture to maximize enjoyment of a propane fireplace. That doesn’t mean all your seating needs to be facing the hearth, but creating an arrangement of chairs and a couch positioned to capture warmth as well as the view of the fire will become a natural gathering spot.

Consider a large, low ottoman in front of the hearth where people can put their feet up or extra guests can sit near the fire.

Putting the TV over the fireplace is a personal choice: Some people feel like it makes the seating arrangement work whether you’re watching the big game or gathering around the fire, while others feel like one detracts from the other.

Year-Round Appeal

Keep the fireplace the center of attention even during warmer months by adding a mantel that works with your décor and topping it with a great painting, a large mirror, or a floral display. The idea is to draw guests together even if the gas hearth isn’t lit.

Consider painting the wall around the hearth in a rich hue that complements your décor and creates a “statement” wall.

Don’t Forget Safety

Make sure all seating is positioned a safe distance from the glass, which can become very hot to the touch. Keep anything flammable, such as drapery, paper, and furniture, at least three feet from the hearth. New gas fireplaces should also include a safety mesh to help protect people and pets, but consider gating the area if you have young children.

Always install a carbon monoxide detector in the room with a gas fireplace following the manufacturer’s directions. Do this with both vented and ventless hearths.

Ventless or Direct Vent: What’s Best?

Traditional, contemporary, homey, dramatic—while the aesthetic style and design are important, the main choice you need to make when adding a gas fireplace is between ventless and direct vent designs. You don’t even need a chimney or flue. All that’s required is access to propane gas.

Ventless models have a regulator that produces a fine gas-air mix that allows the gas to burn cleanly and reduces the fumes associated with traditional gas fireplaces. However, because they are ventless, there are regulations about where a ventless gas fireplace can be installed.

With direct venting, a single dual-chambered pipe is installed directly through a wall to the outdoors (or via an existing chimney). The pipe simultaneously draws air for the fire from the outdoors while expelling the fire’s combustion byproducts to the outside.

Ready to Learn More?

Whether you’re looking to make upgrades for yourself or to add value for a potential sale of your Tri-Cities home, the team at Admiral can show you how easy and affordable installing a gas fireplace can be. We service and install everything we sell, and we stand by our work.

Contact us for more information today.