Monday, December 21, 2009

My Faux Fireplace

garland-fireplace-de Image by Country Living

Growing up, I totally took having a fireplace for granted.  Even though I’ve lived in Texas for most of my life, I’ve never had my parents have never had a house without a fireplace.  Granted it rarely gets below 70 degrees in Texas, but if it even got close from the months of November to February, my mom would get a fire going and we’d all sit around, enjoying the warmth of not just the fire, but of friends and family as well. 

Living without a fireplace has been one of the toughest adjustments to living in a shoebox of an apartment that was built sometime around 1930. (Ok, not really, but you get my point.  Our apartment is ridiculously old and janky and I curse it on a weekly basis, though I’m thankful in the end that we have a roof over our head.)  This holiday season I’ve felt fireplace envy even more than usual as I’ve seen tons of magazines and blogs with fabulous mantles, beautifully decorated and beaming with Christmas cheer.  Though I couldn’t find a way to build a mantle in our little shoebox, I did find a way to get a fireplace.  Confused?  Check out my awesome find below!

DSCN1151 A FIREPLACE DVD!  Genius idea, right?  Whoever thought of this idea has my deepest thanks this holiday season.  I saw one of these at Tuesday Morning, but it was $8 and seemed kind of gimmicky when I saw it.  But as I left the store, I kept thinking about it and how much I would love to have it in our living room.  Two days later, I found this fireplace dvd in the dollar bin at Target!  (Oh how I heart Target’s dollar bin.)  Heck yeah!  I grabbed it quickly as if twenty other people were fighting me for it.  I looked around and clearly, no one else was even half interested, lol.

DSCN1155 But this isn’t any old fireplace that places flickering flames on repeat.  This thing cycles through the real process of a fire!  It goes from “roaring flames” to “soft glow.”  Logs even fall together at the fire changes (tooootally realistic, I know.)  And it even makes real fire noises (you know, snap, crackle, pop, etc.)  And even betteeerrrrr…it can play Christmas music while snapping, crackling, and popping.  So now, Matt and I are enjoying snuggling up on the couch with our Christmas tree and our fireplace.  All this for one dollar…how can you not love it?!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to admit when you told me about this I thought it would be hokie. But, after seeing it in person, I must admit it is very cool. You can even see the fire reflecting in the ornaments on the tree. It really does warm up the room :)

Taylor-Made Wife said...

And you don't have to worry about clean up! I hate cleaning our fireplace!

Dad said...

The only thing missing was the smell. Maybe you can find some Eau de Ashes in the the Target Dollar bin.

Anonymous said...

So ours looks totally lame when you have that awesome one above it!