A typical fireplace contains a hearth, mantel, and surrounds. Frequently, many homeowners regard the hearth and mantel as the principal decorative features of the fireplace, often disregarding the design prowess of surrounds. However, it must be considered that fireplace surrounds are also aesthetically valuable as these two parts. In fact, if your surrounds are updated with highly ornamental fire resistant materials, it is more likely that this part of the fireplace will become the main decorative feature of your fire fixture.

The fireplace surrounds of traditional wood and gas burning fireplace were commonly created from hand carved wood. Currently though, more contemporary non-porous and fire resistant natural stone products like bricks, tiles, marbles and limestone serves as alternatives for wood surrounds. Many homeowners now make use of these materials because they are safer and are also visually enticing. Likewise, they are inexpensive alternatives to wood surrounds as these natural stones demands less design labor, unlike their wood counterparts that needs hand carved detailing which is to laborious to make.

In order to update the aesthetics of your fireplace, you could simply start your project with your fireplace surrounds. There's no limit as to what you can do with the natural stone materials mentioned earlier. If you want a rustic looking fireplace, consider using limestone for your surrounds as this natural stone product complements earth tone furniture pieces that could induce a country vibe in your space. If your house is European inspired, you could further highlight this feature by using marble surrounds that are truly sophisticated especially if they are of darker tones.

If you have fireplace mantel surrounds, which is the combination of surrounds and mantel, the best materials to use to update its look are bricks. There fired color of bricks will leave a classic look on your fireplace, and could also become your inspiration for the overall interior design of your living space. In addition, the alternating courses of headers and stretchers of stacked bricks echoes the grandiosity of world renowned brick structures such as Germany's Chile house and England's Thornbury Castle; hence, if you use bricks as the primary materials for your surrounds, it is also like having a brick landmark inside your space. However, if you want to skip on classical designs and would like to have a contemporary vibe inside your living space, just paint your brick surrounds with a dark tone that would complement the color scheme of your living room.

Tiles are also good materials to use for fireplace mantel surrounds to achieve a softer look. By combining mosaic glass tiles or pebble tiles into an image or pattern, you could surely make your surrounds appear more representative of your personality. If you don't have the patience to do this thing though, you can simply go for digital tile surrounds that make use of printing techniques and digital manipulations to create images or murals; however, this is a bit pricey so be sure that you have enough funds if you want to have digital tile surrounds. To simply put it, the design possibilities for tiles are limitless, you only have to think out of the box in order to incorporate them on your surrounds.

Meanwhile, if you're living in an urban area which won't permit you to use traditional gas or wood burning fireplace, a quick fix for this issue is the faux electric fireplace. The good thing about this fireplace type is that it does not necessarily have to be permanently positioned in one place; as it is portable, you can place it anywhere according to your own preference. Some electric fireplace fixtures also come with mantel and surrounds that you can redecorate just like traditional wood or gas burning fireplace. Generally, with the design capabilities of your surrounds, dong some changes on its materials and finish can go a long way to make your fireplace all the more visually interesting.

Changing the materials you use for your fireplace surrounds or fireplace mantle surrounds could significantly transform your fireplace as the focal decorative feature of your home. Natural stone products like bricks, marbles, tiles and limestone could do wonders for the aesthetics of traditional wood or gas burning fireplace. If you use a faux electric fireplace, the best thing to do to update its look is by changing its surrounds with glass panel which could improve the appearance of simulated fire.