When choosing fireplace mantle accessories, use a small number of high-quality pieces as your starting point. Perhaps an antique mantel clock will be your focal point. A nice set of brass candle holders is another way to give your mantelpiece style and weight, or get a large, unique vase that can hold fresh or dried flowers.

After you’ve chosen your anchor items, start looking for ways to personalize your mantel shelf. Be creative and let your mantle show off your personality. Use personal treasures that can be loosely grouped under a single theme. These can include photographs in unique frames, figurines, and antiques and collectables.

Don’t be limited to only one set of mantel accessories. You can change things up when the mood suits you. Seasonal items provide you with a way to express your artistic side and add variety to your home décor. Springtime is the time to put freshly cut flowers into your mantel vase. You can also force daffodils or paperwhite narcissus into bloom and place them on your mantel shelf. Summertime is the time to collect wildflowers and set out green plants as mantel accessories. In the fall, add colored leaves, pumpkins, and dried flowers to reflect the mood of the changing seasons. For the holidays, pine garland and velvet ribbon sets the mood for the holiday season.

Safety should also guide you when choosing mantle accessories. Anything flammable, especially pine boughs, should be kept up on the mantel shelf and not be allowed to dangle in front of the fireplace where it could catch fire. Be careful of cobwebs and dust gathering on your mantelpiece, as they can easily burst into flame.

A mantel (sometimes called a mantle) is the decorative frame around a fireplace. It is sometimes called a mantelpiece. Unlike a mantel shelf, which is a horizontal piece of shelving above a fireplace, the mantel is a square, three-sided structure that surrounds the fireplace and sets it off from the rest of the room. Either type is a wonderful place to put fireplace mantel accessories, which add warmth and flair to your home.

Mantels can be pre-built as a single three-sided unit, or they can be custom built on site by a woodworker or stone mason. The pre-built mantel is the most common approach nowadays because craftspeople are in short supply and prefer to work in their own studios. A good stone mason or bricklayer is especially hard to find, and can charge a premium price for his or her work.

If you have plenty of money to spend and your home is built to handle the weight, choose a marble mantel. These are mined from marble quarries and handcrafted in the style of your choice. The majority of marble mantels are done in traditional styles such as Greco Roman, Italian, English or French. However, you can also buy a marble mantle in a very plain contemporary style, usually called a fireplace facing or fireplace surround. Marble mantles are only available in colors found in nature, such as white, black, green, tan, and brown.

A wood fireplace mantel is a less expensive alternative to marble and is versatile enough to fit in with any décor. Wood can be carved in a multitude of designs, from very traditional to very contemporary. There are many hardwoods to choose from, including, oak, maple, teak, and cherry, and they can be stained to match any color scheme. A masonry fireplace surround is typically an integral part of wood fireplace mantels. These can be made with brick, granite, or ceramic tile.

Cast stone mantels are a lightweight, inexpensive alternative to native stone. Made from a mixture of portland cement, gypsum, and crushed rock, a cast stone mantel can be shaped into a wide selection of designs and colors. They look heavy and imposing, but in reality weight only 200 to 400 pounds, which means they can be installed by two people.

Conventional fireplaces look great, but they’re inefficient because they’re not airtight, so they pull in huge amounts of air from the room, heat it up, and blast the heat straight up the chimney while sending only a small amount back into the room. Like all airtight woodstoves, an insert burns wood in an air-suffocation environment, capturing up to 50 percent more heat than an open fireplace.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certifies all new wood stoves, including inserts, so they have to conform to pollution and efficiency standards. Inserts can be made of cast iron or steel. The models with glass doors look great in any room and give the same atmosphere as an open fire, only far more efficiently.

It’s worthwhile to consider buying an insert that comes with a blower system, which traps even more heat from the sides and top of the insert and sending it back into the room. Thermostat systems attached to the blowers can give your insert performance much like a central heating system.

The U.S. National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) requires an insert to be installed with a connector flue section between the insert and the first section of chimney flue in your home. Canada’s regulations for chimney connection are even more strict. If you really want to play it safe, you’ll re-line your entire chimney when you have your insert installed. It costs more, but it will make the stove draft more efficiently, and you’ll save money in the long run on chimney cleaning costs.

Do you have a factory-built fireplace made of metal? Then you may run into complications if you try to install an insert, or even a woodstove, and vent it up the chimney of the prefab unit. If the prefab fireplace isn’t listed for this type of installation in its factory manual, then you can’t do it—at least, not and collect on your insurance policy if this type of unsafe installation practice results in fire damage to your home. A prefab fireplace usually has a round opening at the top that leads to the chimney, and is made of metal. A masonry fireplace is made of firebrick and vents up to an chimney flue made of terra cotta colored clay. The opening will usually be square.

You can buy a standard size fireplace screen, or you can custom order one for an exact fit. A standard screen should overlap the opening by a minimum of one-half inch or so on all three sides. You might need to tolerate more overlap with a standard size screen, but don’t buy one that leaves a gap between the frame and the opening. You can also order a custom fireplace screen that’s sized to fit exactly in the opening, with a precise half-inch overlap. A few screens types are designed to fit inside the opening with no overlap. Keep in mind that you’ll still see a few gaps between the frame and the mortar joints of the brick or stone if you buy an inside mount unit. This might look OK during the day, but you should consider how it will look in a dark room with the firelight shining through the gaps before you make the decision to go with an inside mount.

Freestanding fireplace screens have small legs at the bottom that support the unit. An attached fireplace screen bolts directly to the sides of the opening, so it doesn’t need legs. Either type will work, but the attached variety tends to be more attractive.

A good fireplace screen lets you open and close it with an easy pull of a chain. The better units have a pulley system with pull chains attached that open and close by pulling one chain to open and the other one to close, just like window drapes. The cheaper type have batons or wands attached to the top inside corners of the screens and are opened and closed manually by pulling each wand toward the center opening. Look for fireplace screen pull chains with a lifetime warranty.

Brass fireplace screens are the most widely available, followed by black enamel, antique copper, polished nickel, brushed nickel, pewter, and cast iron. The mesh fireplace curtain is usually black, but brass screens are an option. A high-end unit will save you a lot of maintenance costs. Look for finishes that don’t need polishing, and heavy-duty construction that will hold up under exposure to heat and occasional dings from firewood.

When you order a screen online, give the exact width and height of the opening, and specify whether you want an outside overlap or inside mount.