grab a button!
Thanks so much for the great response last week, some lovely people I’d love to feature are:
Carolyn at My Backyard Eden, her Ironing Board Quandry was the most clicked on link!
Crystal at Jus Keep Smiling, who followed through on her question from last week!
and Carol from The Antique Texan, whose comment brought a smile to my face. :)
Thanks also to Mom. Nonstop., Ellie at Beauty 4 Ashes, Julie at My Boys, Life, Music, & Laughter, Pamela at be colorful, and Ann at House Finally! for linking up! :)
Ladies, grab yourselves some bling!
This weeks dilemma comes in the form of a discussion my husband and I had about putting this wood burning stove from our basement:
into our front room here:
more specifcally, in this corner of the room:
Doug says that it will save us a ton in heating costs and that will more than cost of bringing it up here.
I say, I don’t know that it’s a good idea with two small kids. Can they get burned easily? Will we have to put a big honkin’ fence in front of it that will look absolutely ridiculous? Is this even WORTH IT?
I think the savings would be awesome since we have an almost un-insulated house and pay a TON just to keep our heat on low. From a real estate standpoint, would a potential buyer look down on this? I really don’t know that much about wood burning stoves and the whole idea in general just makes me nervous….
So Doug asked me to get your input!
What say YOU?
Do YOU have a wood burning stove in your home? Do you know someone who does?
Are you a realtor and know the answer to my question?
Links to pics or posts, would be GREAT!
thanks in advance, I love having a group of such helpful ladies to bounce ideas off of!
now it’s YOUR turn!
For more details or suggestions about Help Me Wednesday, please read this post!
1st thanks for the tops and new button =)2nd you will be in my shoes very soon and I wouldn't recommended it. I keep an eye on my kids but there are moments I have to walk out the room and the 2 of them plot against me and always get in something. It would save on cost but prob drive you crazy blocking it from the little ones once number 2 starts to walk. The baby will more than likely be crawling this winter so a rug would help warm the room up cause the hardwood floor (have it in my house) makes it super cold in winter. We bought some curtains from I think Big Lots that are energy savers and they work great (its summer and they keep the rooms cool)Child number 1 will teach child number 2 EVERYTHING so I guess this depends on what your oldest is like =)I will be back to link my bathroom up shortly cause I'm not sure whats goin on in that room..lol
I think its a bad idea. I think the kids safety should come before saving money. Maybe you should wait a few years until they are old enough to understand that if they touch it they could get hurt.
I agree with the others, with two small children, it is not a good idea. I have a friend who has a large wood stove in their basement. They say that it heats the whole house, except that the top floor (counting the basement there are 3 floors) sometimes gets a little cool. They do have a wood stove on the first floor as well, but only use it a bit, the one in the basement pretty much runs 24/7 all winter long. The only minus, if you don't have a cheap supply of wood, it can be just as expensive as electric heat. Another idea, our old house had baseboard heat, which is extremely expensive, so we bought oil filled electric heaters, one for each room. They did pretty good at heating the house, and were a lot cheaper to operate! You might want to try that. They can get hot, but generally not hot enough to burn. Hope this helps!
I know nothing about how it would affect resale or your electric bill but I am wondering if it is possible to heat the house with the stove in the basement… Why is it in the basement anyway? If you could get it to heaat the house from the basement it would be a win-win situation… lower electric bills and safe kiddos. Good luck :)
We have a stove in our living room and I like it! It saves a ton on our heating bill. Last winter my kids were 6 months and 2 years, and I babysat kids who were 1, 2 and 4. No one has ever gotten burned and we don't have any sort of baby gate around it. The stove is very hot, so the kids naturally stay away from it. The stove takes effort to keep running during the day. Wood stoves are also very dirty. I have to dust a LOT in the the winter. However there's nothing better than snuggling by the fire when it's well below 0 outside, and we know we'll have heat even if the power is knocked out by a blizzard.Thanks for the nod to my blog in your post! I'm so glad they like me at WHBS. I'm grabbing the button and I'll have a post to link up later today.
If I were to buy a home with a wood burning stove, I think I would make the owners remove it before I bought it. Or keep looking for a different home.My aunt used to have one and she would get birds in there and her home insurance lowered when she removed it.
Hey I just linked up to your Help Me! Wednesday link party because I need some ideas on what to do with my living room so if anyone wants to take a peek and give me some ideas I'd really appreciate it! I just LOVE your blog and everything about it. I'm excited to link up every week and participate. Thanks so much for hosting!
Hmmm, probably the best thing my family did was to purchase a pellet stove. It's much much easier then a woodstove, and is actually a bit warmer. However, just like a woodstove, I'd be careful with the kids around it.
Hey girl!! Just from an insurance standpoint, I don't know if your company knows that you currently have a woodburning stove, but they're not common around here, and can sometimes cause complications when it comes to insurance. If your company knows you have one, I'd definitely say move it up – I think it would look cute! (Of course, I don't know anything about them safety-wise…) But if it's not active & you're going to make it active – it wouldn't hurt to check with your ins. company, just to make sure they allow them. If not, and something happens, you could be up a creek with no paddle!!
I don't know about indoors. We always had one growing up, but it was in our basement which was more like a cellar so we never got near it. My husband & I just bought a central boiler. It's a wood stove that goes outdoors & we LOVE it. It heats our home & our water & my husband just loads it with wood once a day. It's far from the house so no worries there & the expense of putting it in will pay for itself in 4 years of no longer paying for propane.
I had a wood burning stove when my soon was small and I never had any problems or worries, they learn immediately to stay away. Think back to 100 years ago and everyone heated with a wood burning stove. I don't know of a ingle relative that had burns from a stove.Carol
My husband and I have a wood stove in our living room now and I had one growing up as well. Mom had a daycare in the old house and she said no one ever got burned. One way to quickly train kids not to touch is this: heat it up very slightly so it's not hot enough to burn, but warm enough that you don't want to keep your hand on it. When a naturally-curious young child goes to touch it, say 'hot!', and they associate their action, the heat of the stove, and the word 'hot' together. My 8 month old son already stays away from the stove and he's not been burned.A wood stove can save money, but it can also be just as expensive as a heater and it's very dirty. If you harvest all the wood yourself and you have a nearby source, it's almost guaranteed to be a money-saver. Buying it is more expensive, and if your house isn't tight you'll go through a lot more wood than you think. Here in Montana a wood stove is desirable, but even if they're not, they're very easy to remove.
The house my 7 siblings and I grew up in had a wood burning stove in the living room, and no one was ever burned as far as I can remember. I also have 13 nieces and nephews that either visited or lived in the same house, and not a single one of them was ever burned either. Keep in mind I was raised in a house where we weren't watched constantly, we played in the area near the wood burning stove, and still no issues. It did save a lot of money on heating (it was an old farm house), and it also had the benefits of providing heat and energy to cook food in the case of a power outage. In 1991 we had this huge ice storm and no power for a week, but we did just fine with the wood burning stove to heat and cook on in the living room. Others didn't fair so well, so we had several people come stay that week. We used to keep a kettle full of water on top which meant we didnt need a humidifier in the winter time, AND we used to put bricks on top of the stove to heat up, then wrap them in a towel and tuck them under our blankets at the foot of our beds on cold winter nights. They kept our feet nice and warm in a cold bed. Plus…it leads to resourceful kids because they will eventually learn to make a fire, put wood in the stove, and fire safety early on. Most of the people I know couldn't make a fire to save their life (literally and figuratively), but my siblings and I all can, no problem. The big thing is to teach them early on that it is hot, and they could get burned. My oldest niece's first word was "hi," her second word was "hot! hot!" because we taught her from the get-go that it wasn't safe around the fire. No big deal. I understand how people who've never been around one could be concerned about kids' safety, but it's the same as an oven, stove top, bathtub, toilet, or any other household fixture that could be potentially dangerous. It's all about teaching. Sorry this is so long!