Now that we have natural gas in the house, we thought it would be nice to install a gas insert into our wood burning fireplace. In fact we kept the cost of the natural gas installation lower by agreeing to install 4 gas appliances; the insert is our fourth.

We got 2 bids for installation, and went with Blue Flame Heating and Air Conditioning again because their bid was a bit better, and we were happy with the earlier work they did for us.

Neither of us care much for “fake log” gas fireplaces, so we opted for a more modern unit that uses broken amber glass as the fire bed. But before having it installed, we decided to redo the hearth as well. The hearth tiles were pretty beat up; we figure they’re the original 1924 tiles. In their place we opted to install large 16″x 24″ porcelain tile with a cool glaze that looks somewhat like rusty steel. We though it was a good transition between the modern fireplace and the Craftsman house.

The below photos show the project.