Hung by the where?

If you don't have a one, there's still time to build a mantel for the Christmas stockings. You can go with a scrapwood kind (top two) that should take no more than a few days at a leisurely pace. However any of the Wile-E.-Coyote style through-the-wall fireplaces (middle) will take much longer, especially if you include the pair of Staffordshire dogs (middle top right).

Photos from Wary Meyers' Tossed & Found, which can't fit in a stocking, but can fit under the tree....

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Kachelofen

West German WESO ceramic tile stove, from a yard sale. When we finally got it's 440 pounds home and tried to bring it upstairs it crushed the first step, so the next 15 were not in the cards. But when we do finally install it it's going to heat our whole chalet, and we can even cook on it! (see pic). 

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Fireplace Type

Brick openings alphabet (monograms), an outtake from our book. 

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M'Orange

We bought this old faux fireplace at an estate sale last week. Made by Sears in 1974, it's designed to go against a wall, and comes with rolling, crackling, lighted logs and a fan/heater with dial control. The estate also had a matching one in avocado green, but someone had already taken it away. For ten dollars, I don't know why they wouldn't have bought this one as well- imagine them back-to-back in the center of a room... Nonetheless, our plan is to paint it white (aged white, the same as its wall) and replace the chrome with wood (patinated and slightly charred), or the same white and built out a little for a mantle, and put it in a future living room, 

as here, in Halldor Laxness' home in Reykjavik Iceland. (thanks F.A.B.)

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