Is there anything better....?

[MorelCabin]

When we moved, we lost our woodstove... ...but we do have a prpane fireplace now that does have some advantages. I do miss the feel of a real fire though, the way it dries everything out and smells so wonderful. I envy you all. But DH was getting tired of having to keep up with wood after all the long hours he works.
Olive oil, huh? I used to wipe mine down with lard, probably the same effect...and the same smoke effects with the first fire after wiping it down

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I grew up in a house with a fireplace. We would warm up near it and sometimes our fronts were hot and our butts were cold. I used to pretend I needed to dry my hair and I would roll my hair and use a hairdryer in my bed to keep warm.
When I got married we bought a boxwood stove and I was amazed that that little thing did a better job than Mom and Dad's fireplace at keeping the house warm.
We got another boxwood, which we used for years (our first had an accident while in storage). But we wanted something warmer because we had added on the our house, in a sense.
After studying all the BTU ratings of each stove, we chose the potbelly and omg.........its hot. True it costed more than 2 boxwood stoves, but I'm glad we spend the extra because it paid for itself in the first winter.
If the house is completely cold we might light a gas heater to get things started, but once the stove is in full swing, we can turn it off because the stove heats the whole house very well.
I am thinking about getting a kitchen stove, with oven and warmer.....a functional one, to put near my kitchen; maybe in my living room, to replace the gas heater. Then we can cook, bake and warm up, without using gas.