The fireplace you have looks to be a masonry fireplace with aftermarket glass doors. The fireplace is between a negative ten and a positive five percent efficient. The doors cut down on heat loss. Close the doors when you are letting the fire die down to minimize the loss of air from the house via the chimney. Cutting the legs on the grate will do very little to increase performance. To get heat you need to modify the burning format. Adding an insert (wood, gas, or pellet) is the best and most expensive choice. If you want to heat a zone in your home this is the most efficient choice. Inserts will increase the heating performance to an efficiency range of 50 to 75%. Good luck and happy heating.

Why not? I've certainly seen it. I think if you do do this, you should consider putting a floor level tile or brick paver (if you can match) hearth instead of running wood all the way. Technically it WILL work. It has been done. It will save you that space.The raised-fireplace-sans-hearth thing may be not the best aesthetic chioce for your room/ brick fireplace/ architecture. I'd think about how it'd look w/ some changes- consider maybe replacing the fireplace screen and/or finishing around the screen w/ some kind of detail- inset rock or tile maybe. It's hard to say without looking at the fireplace in relation to your living space.

Imalm53 - I usually avoid offering opinions on color because its so subjective and personal, and because monitors affect what you see. But yours is one of my favorite kitchens. Plus I appreciated the step-by-step granite install photos that you posted awhile back. So here goes . . . I agree with some of the previous posters that bold colors would detract from your beautiful cabinets and granite. But I LOVE the colors of your accents . . . burgundy and yellow. Those are the colors of my kitchen. Sort of a mustard yellow on the walls with a burgundy rust on my window soffit. I love it for me, but I dont have the dramatic cabinets and granite that you have. (Its not done yet, so I dont have photos. ) I do like your idea of putting color on the fireplace wall. Hows about putting your burgundy on that wall, with your yellow on the mantle trim. Then using a softer coordinating color on the rest of the room. Then pulling those colors into your window treatment to tie it together. I was going to try to do a mock up but my monitor is playing havoc with the colors (getting mauve and some strange yellows). I just did a search and saw Benjamin Moores Pottery Barn Collection. Looks beautiful . . . at least on my monitor. Can you imagine doing some combination of this? (not sure if you need the green, though) Benjamin Moore's Navajo white Wedgewood gray Brick red Hampton green HTH!

I puzzled and puzzled and finally figured out that the elevation for the range wall is upside down! Where do you eat your meals, if not in the current dining room/playroom? I ask because that's the destination of the cooked food - it either goes out one end of the kitchen or the other! I big on working with the flow of food as it passes from storage to cooking to serving and I think in a small space like yours, it's doubly important. Can you steal space from either end of the sink wall to shove the fridge back in a few inches, or is that only possible on the laundry room end? Are the people in your family right handed, or left handed? I am noodling on ways to shove the sink and stove away from each other so that when one person is standing facing either one they are not about to step on the heels of another who is standing at the other work center. I would sacrifice some cabinet space in order to build in the toaster oven. or toaster/MW combo appliance on a shelf under the counter. I think it might be very useful to get rid of the wall near the window and just have cabinets and a counter die back into the DR exterior wall. it would change the room into an L-shaped room, with the kitchen stuff in the ell. If you decided to keep the wall, you could use it for storage with narrow shelves at right angles to the window. Don't forget to plan on some over-fridge cabs. Bringing them out to the front of the fridge helps shove the fridge back visually and makes the contents more accessible. Under cabinet lighting would be an improvement as right now the person standing at the counters casts a shadow on the work space in front of them from the overhead light. I'm really curious about the position of the fireplace. It seems like it's stuck away at the end of a hall, which is a very unusual place. is it a regular hearth, do you sit or gather near it? Are you keeping your 36" range; would a smaller one be possible? HTH L.