Thinking Outside of the Box

The problem so I am told by the wife is that the dinning room is too cold looking; it lacks a feeling of warmth. Whilst I trust my wife’s sense of aesthetics, what I don’t trust is her internal thermostat, as she is always cold.

Anyway, what Princess wants, Princess gets. So off we go to B&Q to purchase a Wall Mounted Electric Fire. £200 later we are back at home. Now the reason for the fire was to make the dining room feel warmer as we often get rid of the kids and have romantic meals. We either cook for the other or share the cooking. We just like to make an effort once a month, candles, music and good food. Now Saturday night was one of those very nights, so that meant, it had to be hung immediately.

Anyway, firstly I didn’t have the right drill bit (14mm) and had to go back up to B&Q. Then after carefully measuring up and working out the exact centre of the old chimney stack, and getting the levels right, I drilled the holes and hung the fire. Standing back, it was a good 2 inches to far over to the right (God knows how). So out came the drill again. This time I had to go a little higher as I didn’t want the new holes too close to the original holes…

That’s when it ALL went pair shaped. As I was drilling the first hole I hit the bottom of a brick and the drill went flying down through the crumbling plaster to create a hole that went straight for the first inch then veered down and then straighten up again, Which meant my snug 14mm hole was now around 25mm. Which meant the bolts to hang the fire were as loose as a loose thing. I didn’t fair much better either on the second hole. Obviously the level I choose was just in line of the bottom of a line of bricks.

So then I had the put the bolts in and then polyfiller around them and tell the wife that I would have to wait 24 hours to hand the fire. Well her puppy dog eyes told me she “really want the fire up tonight for our romantic meal”. So then I had to improvise and over come.

I packed the holes around the bolts with nails pushed in to the pollyfiller to keep them in place and then hung the fire. You would think that was the end of it…. NO.

When you turned on the fire effect (not the heat, just the flame effect ie. the light blub) it made a horrendous noise as it turned around and around creating the dancing flame. Really really loud.

Anyway, we put up with it for that night, but first thing Sunday morning it all came down and has gone back in the box ready to get a refund.

Now this is where I “finally” get to the title of the blog, thinking outside of the box. Whilst the wife spent yesterday going around various places looking at other fires, which by their very nature will make some noise I was thinking.

What if we got a LCD TV with built in DVD (which we were already looking at to go on the bedroom wall), we could run the “virtual fireplace DVD” on it to create the ambience. Plus it could be generally used to watch TV whilst cooking etc, or when the kids are having breakfast. So it would get a thousand times more use than just a fire, at only a small extra cost. We could even play an Aquarium DVD if we wished.

Isn’t that a fantastic idea?

So who is for the noise fireplace that will only get used once a month or who is for the LCD HD TV with Freeview and built in DVD player?

Votes please..