One of the appealing features in this little old farm house that we bought is the wood burning stove. It looks old, it is old.

Unfamiliar with this type of stove and chimney we called in an expert chimney sweep.  It just happened to be before Christmas and he bore an uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus!  When the kids came home from school I told them that the gentleman had stopped by to “check out the chimney  to see if he would fit  “.  They made their own assumption !  It was very sweet (  and naughty on my part ).

He was a great sport letting me take his photo!

My next step was to clean the rust  off this old stove.  I googled the how to’s  and found that using Crisco and steel wool  was the best option. Well really ,those were the ingredients I had readily available.

 

 

The only problem I had with this, and it had been discussed online, was that the first few times your fireplace is lit , it smells  you are cooking on a frying pan!

 

My way , I found to combat this , was to place a cast iron kettle on top of the stove with Trader Joes mulling spices in the water. Not only did this make the room smell amazing, but also brought some much needed moisture into the room. See photo at the top.

I am still experimenting with which kind of wood to use because I find that  freshly cut wood is too wet to burn ,and some woods are harder than others.  The pine burns quicker than walnut.

Being a firefighter’s wife sure helps  when you want to be a firestarter !!