Xanndra, The picture is a bit misleading because of the angle. From the back-side wall of the "cavity" to the "face" of the living room wall it is about 25". The height is about 50" (I don't have the exact numbers here). Originally, I planned on the Heat-N-Glo EM42. I had installers from three different stores come over and measure. The problem, as I found out, was the fact that the house has a 2x6 framing. Great for strength - lousy for the fireplace! It causes the fireplace to be "pushed" forward so that the required offset in the chimney (to get it back into the center of the chase) requires framing modification to the header of the fireplace cavity -- raise it 12" ! Only one of the installers was willing to do the framing work too, and none of them actually thought about alternative, more "shallow" fireplaces. Then the 4th installer came, and he immediately suggested the alternatives -- didn't waste time on moving the header and such. That's why I preferred him. Hopefully I'll resolve things soon... Cheers, Zevi.

Snagd, Thanks for the kind words. I'll try to help you the best I can. We went to a local fireplace showroom that had hundreds of displays and the one we really loved was the Fireplace Extraordinaire set in ledge stone. This fireplace was too big for what we needed so the salesman showed us the BIS Tradition CE which has the same look but in a smaller unit. The company we purchased the stove from, installed it for us. Like you, we are handy and like to do the work ourselves. In retrospect the install job did not look that difficult and we could probably have done it ourselves but I felt safer having it done professionally. In our kitchen, the ceiling follows the roofline. The left side of the stonework runs 73" from the floor and on the right the stonework is 9 feet high. We had never done anything like this either but the people we bought the stone from gave us the Owens-Corning installation instructions and lots of good tips to follow. You really just have to take your time and try to fit the stones together as tightly as possible. Looking at our job, where we concentrated on that, I think it looks best. My husband was adamant about doing the masonry so we went around looking for the ledge stone and ended up using Owens-Corning Cultured Stone. The type we picked was Gray Southern Ledge Stone. It comes in large boxes. We bought 6 boxes and had plenty to do our fireplace (about 60 square feet). It is nice to have extra because you always have lots of choices when trying to figure out which stone to use. The calculations we used should have resulted in buying about 20 percent extra stone, but we ended up probably closer to 50 percent extra. With so much stone, we never really had to compromise when looking for the right pieces. Up until the end we had a kitchen floor covered with stone to choose from. I think the job came out better because of the choices available to us and we will probably find uses elsewhere for the remaining stone. The job was like building a puzzle except most pieces fit together, its just that some look better together than others. We spent most of the time piecing sections together on the floor prior to applying them to the wall. My brother loaned us a wet saw which was handy when the perfect stone could not be found and cutting was necessary. I would guess we probably cut less than 20 stones, but it was great to have the saw when we needed it. Putting them up is actually the easy part. We put mortar on the wall and the back of the stone then just stuck them to the wall. In many cases, we wedged small pieces of gravel under the stone to hold them straight until the motor set. Of coarse you must cover the wall with a vapor barrier and wire lathe before the stone but that is explained in the instructions. The hearth stone we chose is a 2" thick slab of Bluestone. The reason it is angled is because the fireplace is caddy-corner between French doors on the left going out to the deck and a door to the garage on the right. We had no choice but to have the corners cut as otherwise they would have interfered with the opening of the doors on either side. We bought it at a local stone yard then took it to a kitchen countertop maker to get it cut. We supplied them with a stone and a template (cut from the box the fireplace came in and doubled as a hearth for the first month after the fireplace was installed). The people who cut the stone did a great job and left no sharp corners. When we got it back, it fit into place without any further modifications . The only real drawback to the angled corners is the fireplace burns so hot that you can not sit directly in front of it (my daughter sat down on it and melted the hood of her jacket in less than a minute without actually making contact with the fireplace). The only place you can sit is on the sides where they are cut to avoid the direct heat of the fireplace. I hope that answers your immediate questions, donÂt hesitate to ask if you have any more questions and good luck with your project, IÂm sure youÂll get as much enjoyment as we do when it is finally finished.

Town and Country and Majestic have the gas controls outside the fireplace. There are issues in finding the proper location for them and having a clean finished product. Escape - Has some funny looking brick. stacked like a retaining wall. Valves are in the fireplace (that's a good thing). Montebello - Just released to the market this week. Looks similar to T&C and Majestic and like Heat N Glo the controls are built into the fireplace . They are latest entry into this clean face market and have benefited for the mistakes make by the others. Napolean - At best, they are fringe player here in Southern California. Have not seen that product.

Ditto! Wood! I agree there are many attractive stoves and inserts out there today. And they're EPA compliant so they're not "dirty". There are plenty of excellent manufacturers out there. Lopi, Regency, Jotul, Hearthstone, Avalon, etc. You can have the opening completely covered, or have an actual woodstove installed in the opening. That's what we did in our old home over 20 years ago. So when we built our current home here in VT, the FIRST thing we got was a woodstove! The fire viewing is excellent, and if you get the right size stove, it'll keep you warm without overheating you. Even though our home is new, (7 years old now) I don't regret making the woodstove the primary heat source. I have an oil furnace, but I use less than one tank of oil a year. And compare the price of gas today with the price of firewood. Wood wins every time! Go to your local stove shop. As a matter of fact, visit at least three. Get opinions of different stoves and inserts by various manufacturers. You won't regret it.