Project: River Rock Fireplace

This light-filled home needed a fireplace that would emphasize a sense of nearness to the surrounding landscape. With windows big enough to blur the lines between indoors and outdoors, the installation feels close to the manzanita just outside, as if the clients are living in an extension of Lithia Park.

A clever tetris of Quartz Creek Cobble from Hilton Landscape Supply shows off Nathan Peters Masonry’s eye for the stones’ relationships, building varied directions in the rock like a hiker’s stone stacking meditation. The grout lines are set deep, leaving space between the rocks to emphasize their soft, river-worn curves.

The mantle is a live edge slab of yew wood, an ancient tree variety lending age and gravity alongside the time-hewn river rock. At the base of the fireplace, the ‘Sie Romnai Crema Matte’ from Bennett Tile installed by Tile Pros has a trimless edge. A note of calm against the busy contrasts of the stone.

Perhaps it was a little on the nose, but the paint color laid by Transparent Construction is by Miller Paint in the color ‘Stone Hearth.’ Sometimes the right thing is just that easy.

For the fireplace, Ashland Builders worked with Eli Lease of Oregon Heating and Repair to install this gas insert. Moving all 1400lbs of the beauty was a feat of physics that will go down in Ashland Builders history.