Finish Your Fireplace with the Right Fire Baskets

A living fire is one of the most beautiful and comforting things that a home can contain. There’s something special about a room that has an open hearth, a gorgeous mantel, a crackling fire in the grate. Fire baskets raising the flames and keeping them safely contained.  The whole spectacle is more than just a source of heat and light – it’s a work of art, the centre piece that ties the whole room together.

Like any work of art, the perfect fireplace involves choices. What surround will you have? What mantel and what backing? And, most importantly, what basket will you choose to offset the whole thing?

A fire basket has a simple function – it’s there to keep your flames in the right place, to ensure that the wood and coals don’t spill out into the hearth, and to make cleaning and maintenance easy. Fire baskets have a decorative function, too, though – which means you need to choose the right basket to finish off your hearth and fire backing.

Where do you begin? Start with your room. What’s the theme or feeling of the room? What kind of house is it in? If you live in an old Georgian town house, for example, you may wish to make a nod to the history of the place in your choice of hearth, backing and basket. Or you may have adopted the trend for modernising the interior of an older place – in which case your fire, and its fire baskets, might have a Bauhaus or Art Deco look to it.

Decide what you want to achieve with the centre piece of your room. Are you looking to make an arresting statement or to have a fireplace that blends effortlessly with the background? Using a stone bowl fire basket makes a statement that is at once standout and subdued – a natural, organic look for your hearth that is arresting but simple.

Some basket designs require fire dogs and are supplied with them – others give you the option of specifying the dogs you are going to use. Combining fire baskets with fire dogs further opens the possibilities for statement making: though here you want to be careful that you don’t mix your styles too much. As a general rule, a simple basket with a pair of arresting modern fire dogs does the trick – performing, in fact, a similar function to the stone bowl mentioned earlier. You keep your fittings simple and smooth and the flames become an organic part of the room.

If you are going for period fireplaces or a more ornate feel in general, then you’ll find a wealth of inspiration in more traditional looking fire baskets. While simple materials like stone or one tone, smooth metal are the order of the day for modern baskets, period styled baskets tend to be wrought in at least two colours of metal, and often display highly decorative working around the grate and on the visible areas at the back.