A corner fireplace in a room with a cathedral ceiling makes a bold design statement, particularly in the event that you go with a floor-to-ceiling cladding of the pursuit — the buildout for the chimney — therefore the fireplace’s top border forms an angle in accord with the vaulted ceiling. The stunning visuals of chemical angles when you set the corner fireplace at 45 degrees take you far away from the dull, and create rooms meant to please the eye and to linger in since the logs snap and crackle.

Engineer your fireplace structurally in accord with the International Residence Code and any additional local codes as verified with your housing permits office — sloping fireplaces may be illegal in certain localities. You want to reinforce either hardwood flooring or concrete slabs to keep the burden of the hefty hearth, firebox and chimney. The firebox must be at least 20 inches deep and equipped with a damper. Ask a professional architect or engineer to review and, if necessary, revise your layouts and provide the seals required for obtaining a permit.

Select a framing option for the cathedral ceiling. You may either get exposed collar ties at each rafter pair, or bolted-on, doubled collar ties at each third rafter. Or, you can totally open the ceiling up by hanging the rafters, without support collars, from a powerful structural ridge beam.

Select a position and alignment to your corner fireplace. A fireplace with one open side the front can be set at 45 degrees to the corner, and will lose less heat to a exterior wall than it would if it were set flush to the wall, writes Maureen Mitton at “Residential Interior Design: A Guide to Planning Spaces.” Or you can decide on a fireplace with two open sides flush at the corner, with its shut sides against the walls and open sides facing the space. Having a two-side-open masonry fireplace, then include a glass enclosure, Mitton advises, to avoid smoke escaping into the space.

Find the corner fireplace so that its placement within the encompassing great room or bedroom improves, rather than complicates, traffic flow, esthetics and also your capacity to furnish the space, Mitton advises. Typical designs place the fireplace in a corner farthest in the home entry, so that flanking windows are able to look out over gardens or woodlands and create a feeling of openness.

Insert your own creative ideas to the mix. Your corner fireplace may climb to a mantel, or include a fieldstone face which goes all the way to the ceiling — or both. Find the fireplace marginally offset to the corner to get more visual appeal. Warm maple or oak finishes for your collar ties may harmonize with fieldstone veneer, or you may go contemporary with exposed beams and a slate fireplace. To get a conventional sense, put cornice molding along the soaring lines of the cathedral ceiling.

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