One of my favorite things that bring me happiness and joy is a fireplace, not an electric one or even one on the TV screen but a real wood-burning fireplace.

One of my favorite things, when we visit the Biltmore, is sitting by the fireplace in the lobby or the beautiful fireplace in the Dining Room. Our first apartment when we were married in 2001 actually had a wood-burning fireplace which in Florida is something rare indeed and it was one of the reasons why we picked that apartment.

We take any chance we can to enjoy a nice fireplace because living in Florida the best we can manage is an electric one. One of our many dreams is to one day have a second home in the Blue Ridge mountains and I hope that home will have a beautiful wood-burning fireplace.

It always makes me sad whenever I see people blocking off fireplaces, especially if they are old ones or removing them altogether.

My dream fireplace would be a stone fireplace with a mantle made of old rustic wood, I would not do anything tacky like mount a large TV or an oversized gilded mirror over it but maybe an antique oil patining or an old world map, something that would definitely give it an old-world feeling.

Now I want to share some of my favorite Fireplaces that we have visited over the years including the one from our first apartment.