Oh wow, won't that be nice to cozy up to on a cold winter's day! We have a wood stove in the basement and there's nothing better than a roaring fire when it's nasty outside. And congratulations on getting your very own room. I wish I had my own room........oh wait, DH tells me that I do have my own room..........the kitchen, grumble,grumble(LOL).

We have a Valley Comfort in the basement and it has always heated our whole house all winter. Nothing like wood heat, that's for sure!

I've had my own room for a few years now, one of the bedrooms the kids vacated. The computer is in here, and some bookshelves, sewing machine, and last year i put in some mini-greenhouse shelves with lights for seed-starting. Needless to say, it's a little crowded in here!

Verena, you will really enjoy the wood stove!! Such a warm and cozy feeling they give off. We put a fireplace insert into the existing unusable fireplace in our home here on the acreage the year we moved in. We love it. I also though would not want a wood stove in the laundry room because of the ashes but also because of the junk that falls from the wood you bring inside.

Do you know how it will affect your house insurance? When we bought our insert the insurance remained the same because of it not being a wood stove in the middle of the room. Now, the insurance company that handles our policy has changed and they are in the process of reviewing the wood insert and so we still do not know if it will change (go up) or not.

Laurie...re..your own room...I had to chuckle about that.
So does that mean that DH's meals are optional and all the dishes are optional and you can put some craft supplies and lots of plants in there, being that it is your room? Probably not right?

Marcia, our kids moved out and now I also have the one room for crafts/sewing/painting/etc. but...it also needs to be a spare bedroom. So, I hear you when you say it is a little crowded. I have been buying Rubbermaid see-thru containers to store all my years of pictures in. In the closet I placed a large sturdy antique wooden dresser that is large enough to put 2 stackable plastic 5 drawer shelving units on top of it so that some of the craft supplies can be neatly organized. I have a 3 foot wide, 5 shelf, 6 foot tall bookcase that is full of craft patterns and books. Plus my sewing machine/serger is in the room also. But...after all these years it is so nice to have my own room....

Laurie...wait until your kids leave home and then you will be able to have your own room (besides the kitchen).

Brenda

Ooooh! Verena! That looks and sounds delightful! Can we come over and hang with you when the temperature drops? I'll bring wine!

Will you post pictures when you get the stone & tile done?

Wow that looks so cozy Verena, I bet you're the only one here who actually wants it to snow now! I'm not allowed to have a wood stove with my insurance... it's hard to get house insurance in Manitoba as it is, with our public car insurance nobody wants to bother with us. Ironically, in the house I just bought, there is a fireplace with a broken damper and the chimney needs pointing the top 10 feet, and the insurance company didn't bat an eye. The previous occupants didn't use it. Guaranteed if anyone lit a fire in it right now the house would go up like a torch. But if it's not a woodstove, it's fine!

Anyway get your axe swinging arms ready...you'll be wishing you were in the kitchen. LOL

LOL, Brenda, yes maybe in about 10 years I can have my own room!

Yes, a wood stove sure can affect house insurance. When we first installed our wood stove, we were with Lloyd's of London insurance, and as long as the stove was installed up to code, there was no increase in the payments. But now because they've pulled out of North America last year, our payments went up my $80 a year for the stove. Oh well, it's still worth having the stove, even if we don't use it to heat our whole house with anymore. Last winter, because of all the ice on the hydro lines, we had quite a few power outages, and boy was it nice to have a wood stove then!

Verena, yes please do post some pics of when you've got all the stone and tile work done. That's something we still have to do ourselves. Someday..........

Verena, that should keep you and the baby warm this winter.

We have a huge fireplace but it was mostly for decoration than for keeping the house warm. DH converted a coal stove or you can burn wood as well in front of the front opening of the fireplace. We save alot in gas bills!

Sharon

Party at my house on a snowy day in late January!!! I'll dig up some recipes for spiked hot chocolate, my homemade Kaluah, and and chocolate fondue with the fixings...anything else...you gotta bring ;-)

LOL...the kitchen...that's what DH used to say to me too... Great minds...& fools, hey? ;-)

I can't wait to start installing...it's not going to impact the insurance, we asked two years ago. They said it only would if we were in a mobile. We just have to follow the mfg's specs for distances from walls, etc.

No splitting wood for me (what...and wreck my finely manicured nails...LOL...riiiiight... ;-) actually we're probably going to get one of those little hydrolic splitters from Crappy Tire...our friends have one and say they work great, even on wood that's a little on the green side...and since they're not gas, they're quiet as can be.

Can hardly wait for that first fire!! Told DH I was going to start a family tradition of roasting mashmallows and making smores at Christmas (there I said it...the "C" word...like taking of a bandaid...quick and *rip* PAINFUL!! LOL) It should be very cozy when it's all done...We're replacing the windows in the sunroom tomorrow! (Yeah...then it will officially be a year round room...) and moving the washer & dryer downstairs so we can start measuring for the base, etc. I will definately post pics when it's finished. (Makes me glad our neighbor is a semi-retired mason...I think I'll have him give me a lesson. :-) I'd kind of like to go pick my own rock for it...but then we'll have to get out right away!

Verena

Verena, glad to hear that the insurance will remain the same.

What kind of windows are coming?

When we had a sunroom built a few years ago some places recommended single pane and some recommended double pane and then... we talked to guys who build homes and they said that, for sure, we should be getting triple pane windows. So that's what we did and we love it. There are no drafts and no humidity problems and we can use and do use the room year round. Our fireplace is at one end of the living room with the entrance to the sunroom at the other end. The doors to the sunroom are open almost all of the year.

You will love the ability to use the sunroom in the winter. Please post before and after pictures.

Are you bringing any plants in to put in front of the windows in the sunroom to keep them over the winter?

Brenda

Well...we went to the Gienow factory in Calgary the other day and got a bunch of windows from the clearance center (10 windows total...enough to replace all the old windows in the house (four are already done). They're all vinyl clad dual pane windows, all have parts that open, some slider and one crank. (And because we got them from the clearance area the total came to under 2 grand. (Most of which was covered by the glass insurance payout :-). The windows in the sunroom had been single pane, with several cracked, and two missing the glass completely, we've been meaning to fix/replace them ever since we moved in, but $$... So we've covered all the windows in the sun room with sheets of foam insulation for the past two winters. This year I'm actually going to get to keep the light!! Yeah!! And *of course* I'm bringing plants in for in front of the windows!! ;-)

Oh...a new development today. DH and I went to home depot (for other things) and I saw light tan ceramic tile on for $0.99/sq ft...not my first choice, but the price was right. We were going to get two cases...but there was a bunch of mixed on the same pallet and a bunch of *really nice* natural slate tile (dark, with lots of greens and rusts...really nice...). So we asked an associate to show us which was the ceramic tile on sale...and when he looked he made an unhappy comment about the people who stocked the pallet, and said we could have anything we wanted on the pallet for $0.99/sq ft (because the sale items weren't there)....so we got 8 cases of the natural slate, and we're going to tile the two sides behind the wood stove, as well as under it. It should look very sharp!!

So excited!! I will definately take some pics now and after. Probably post them together...since I don't have a digital and I'm just starting a new roll of film. (Hmmm....wonder how many years it'll take before kids don't know what film is...and I'll sound like this crazy old lady saying "You young 'uns don't know how easy you got it. Back in my day we took our pictures on a camera, big bulky things compared to what you got nowadays, that needed rolls of film to take your pictures..." ;-)

Verena

It sounds great, Verena! I'm looking forward to seeing your pictures! I'd kill for a sunroom! :)

Insurance companies here are not happy about insuring houses with wood stoves. They feel better if you have electric or gas and the wood is just backup. So it is. :>

Eep - i just hit some keys by accident and have screwed up my view here. Better go try to fix it. (Shaking my head)

That's a great looking unit, Verena! I, too would love to see your tiling when done. I'm going to tackle our heater area this winter and I'm kind of intimidated, but no one else is going to do it...grumble, grumble.

Don't forget to make a place to hang your stockings for Santa! You're going to love it. Another tip...train your DH to have it fired up before you crawl out of bed in the am. Took me 4 years, but, by golly, perserverence pays off and he even gets the coffee going. You gotta love 'em! See, the training must never stop!

Tootsie