It is often a focal point in your living room, but sometimes it can be difficult to decide what to do with a chimney breast. Here are seven delectable chimney breast ideas to help you choose how best to enhance yours.
A lounge, or living room, is a space where we spend time relaxing and watching television with friends and family. It is a room where we can unwind, surrounded by our favourite things.
Our seven delectable chimney breast ideas range from instant, and affordable, to the longer-term renovator in need of a strong statement.
A Simple Seven Delectable Chimney Breast Ideas You Can Start Today
From fine art to fish tanks, check out our chimney breast plans.
1 Hang a Mirror on your Chimney Breast
An antique-style mirror is a superb way to bounce light around a room, give a feeling of space, and add a touch of class with glass. This is the easiest way to enhance your chimney breast, and you don’t need to spend a fortune either.
B&M sell a wide range of wall mirrors, all of which come with a side order of glitz. They easily make our list of seven delectable chimney breast ideas.
To get a unique, and ultimately delectable look, go vintage! There are dozens of specialist websites as well as local antique stores where you can discover rare and rather special mirrors. A great idea if you are looking to enhance a period property.
The vintage site Vinterior boasts over 10,000 wall mirrors for sale, so you will be able to find the perfect one for your home.
2 Hang an Original Artwork
Artwork is becoming more and more affordable, either sold through an online gallery or directly from an artist. What could be better than having a painting on your chimney breast by a professional artist?
Contemporary artist Aisha Haider sells her art through Artwork500 which offers payment terms for all paintings showcased on its site. None are priced over £500, hence the website’s name. You can pick up an original piece for less than £40 a month!
Search for local artists on Facebook, or other social networks. The town library or museum may also host exhibitions where you can directly support makers and have something original to enjoy every day on your chimney breast.
If you have a favourite photograph of a pet, or a family member, you can commission your own artwork from one of many artists who will make a painting to order. You can contact artists, like Jules Thompson, directly to discuss availability and price.
3 Install a Media Wall
Instead of restricting yourself to a single statement piece install a smart television linked to your home entertainment system. On a larger chimney breast, you can fit a good-sized screen, ideal for gaming or watching movies.
Link it to the Internet for video calling friends and family around the world. Set up a rotating screensaver of favourite images or photographs from your phone. Use the remote control to stream music.
This Samsung 65 inch crystal screen smart TV has new 4K definition so will dazzle on any living room chimney breast.
We recommend that you install a media wall above a gas or electric fireplace so that you can properly regulate the temperature levels. A wood, or multi-fuel burner may well become too hot for an electronic device to cope with.
4 Go Back to Basics
If you live in an older home then it is likely that your chimney breast is constructed from local, handmade bricks. One of our favourite seven delectable chimney breast ideas is to strip off and show off the beauty below the plaster.
Chances are that the chimney breast may need a little TLC to bring it up to standard anyway, so going back to basics, and revealing the bones of the building can pay dividends.
The warm tones of old red bricks, and the natural variation of shape and contour, can lend a rustic charm to an older property. Likewise, it can prove an effective counterpoint to modern lines and later renovations.
Another way to achieve this cool look is to use brick slips. A box of 35 starts at less than £45 at Jewson. Simply glue them in place and add the mortar mix afterwards. You don’t need to be a bricklayer!
5 Installing a Fish Tank is a Very Delectable Chimney Breast Idea
Watching multi-coloured fish swim lazily around an aquarium is a proven way to lower stress levels at the end of a difficult day. If you don’t have a fire in the chimney breast then get your builder to repurpose it to take a fish tank.
It could be quite the showstopper in a large chimney breast, or even a more modest affair. Ocean Life Aquatics in Manchester are specialists in exactly this kind of installation. If you are a fish enthusiast then it can be an ideal way to showcase your passion.
You can use the space to fit a vivarium for your snakes, or other reptiles. Fit an access panel to give the chimney breast a coherent finish and hide the workings. Use the old chimney as a vent.
We recommend that a gas, electric, or wood-burning fire not be retained below any facility designed to keep live creatures.
6 Book up Your Chimney Breast
If you’re not using the chimney breast to heat the space, then repurpose it to house part of your book collection. With the chimney sealed off, and vented, board out the fireplace and add shelves.
Add shelves on one side of the chimney breast too. Perhaps add a low cupboard on which cushions can be placed to form a book nook. A place to sit and read, large enough for you and a cat, and a cup of tea.
When local byelaws tell you that you can’t install a wood burner due to air quality regulations, there’s nothing to stop you lighting up your imagination with some classic reading material. Keep it simple.
The quality binding of older books always looks good. It is where you can show off those hardback collectables to their best advantage too.
If you are a chaos agent, then stacking books in the fireplace can still look charming. Books are often quite self-possessed articles with a charm all their own, and don’t need to be tidy!
If you’re not a reader but love the look, visit your local charity shop. Most will have a shelf full of books that have already been well-read by previous owners. Oxfam has a network of charity bookstores, one only a 13-minute walk from London Victoria Station.
7 Don’t be Afraid of Space
At the end of the day, a simple, quiet, open space can be the most stunning statement of all. A minimalist aesthetic does not say, ‘do nothing’, but rather one that says ‘this space exists’.
A broad, clear chimney breast can stand as a room divider, a surface that reflects light in a soft, diffuse manner, or a colour field that delivers a mood. It can signal a transition from one focus, say a television, or media corner, to another, art, hobby, or book space.
Making the space provided by a chimney breast work well in this way requires a good, consistent level of finish. If you are redecorating, make sure to spend as much time as possible in preparing the surface of the chimney breast to receive its final finish.
Filling and sanding is the least glamorous part of painting and decorating. It’s the part the DIY stores don’t sell half as well as the paint colours that got you thinking in the first place. It’s dull, but necessary, and will make that topcoat really pop once it goes on.