Fire features, from rustic to elegant with many styles and price points in between, are all the fun imagined.  Often they are just happy to look at or hang around, but absolutely get ready for BIG FUN when the flames are happening.  Kids gravitate to them, especially when the marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate appear.  Adults?  We simply appreciate the mood and any excuse to relax.  Our family has discovered that’s where conversations go frantic, neighbors migrate and imaginations percolate.

 Our favorite type of fire feature is encouraged from the homes architecture, neighborhood setting and the intended purpose.  Naturalized / woodsy settings harmonize well with a rustic boulder fire pit.  More formal settings like to be paired with something uniform and predictable (not one of my favorite words).  But, even the predictable can be zinged up with a compelling cap stone or some sort of insert.

We’re a fan of different.  If everyone else on the block has a custom brick and mortar fireplace with a remote control starter, recessed flat screen and built in espresso bar, let’s do something else.  Why not natural stone walls with a flagstone cap similar to the photo featured?   It has a gas starter for convenience, feeding a circular fire ring that performs dramatically over Hawaiian lava boulders artfully crushed into intimate pieces.  It adds another interesting texture and color to the overall project.  If the happy homeowner is interested in adding a small log for smoky interest, fantastic!

What better way to engage than sitting on custom seating.  Seat walls are popular (another bad connotation), very affective and compact.  Jazz them up easily or punctuate them with landscaping that hugs the space and determines the mood.
Fall is the ideal time to gather your loved ones around one of these HOT fashion statements.  It’s just hard to not relax and have fun around a fire feature.  Consider it therapy.