The heart of our home: the wood stove.  This vital piece of equipment produces our heat, boils hot water, warms our food, and provides a beautiful ambiance in the evenings.  

When I first started looking for a wood stove for our yurt, I had several criteria in mind.  Of course I wanted it to look cute, and so many stoves have an ugly base (imo).  So I was looking for something with cute legs.  It needed to have a large, flat surface on top that I could use for cooking.  And having a glass door was non-negotiable for me.  We had a solid door on our fireplace insert in town, and it was always hard to tell when it needed to be fed, and oftentimes the fire would die and we wouldn’t realize it until it already started to feel chilly inside.  Plus, we knew we’d want the extra light that a glass door would allow for.  

So those were my search parameters.  Do you know how hard it is to find a used wood stove that has a flat top, cute legs, a glass door, and doesn’t break the bank?  I’d searched high and low and had nearly given up, when I finally came across the listing for this beauty on craigslist.  

Someone was remodeling their house and just wanted it gone.  We got it for $200, and it was in great condition!  So we drove the hour away to where it was and loaded it into the back of my minivan.  We forgot to take the firebricks out before the drive, so a few of them fell over and cracked (oops!) but Cody was able to glue them back together with fireplace mortar.  

This baby runs most of the year, except for the hottest months during the summer – and even then, some nights get chilly enough to make us want a small fire in the morning to take the edge off until the sun takes over.  That’s probably the one downside to living in a yurt, it doesn’t hold heat as well as a normal house.  Don’t get me wrong, with the fire going it gets nice and toasty real quick!  Even to the point of having to open the dome sometimes in the middle of winter to vent out the excess heat.  But if the fire fire goes out it can start to get frigid.  But it works out because that means I can keep kettles of hot water at the ready throughout most of the year!

**Update** – This fall we stacked cinder blocks on either side. It’s not quite a mass heater, but it does help retain a little extra heat overnight after the fire goes out!

This fireplace doesn’t quite get hot enough to cook on top efficiently, at least not without cooking us out of the yurt.  We use a propane camp stove for the bulk of our cooking.  But it works great for heating up leftovers or toasting bread, and I can boil water for hot drinks in just a few minutes.  I also keep a trivet on one corner to use as a warming plate – think reheating coffee after you’ve been distracted with the baby lol.  And of course it’s a very reassuring feeling to know that we won’t freeze to death if the grid gets knocked out in a snow storm!

Regardless of where we live, one thing I will always want to have is good ol’ trusty wood heat! But in terms of ambiance, a warm glowing fire on a cold autumn evening, in a yurt in the woods, with the sound of the river right outside your walls…now that sounds just about perfect to me.

Have you lived in a house with a wood stove?  What is your favorite thing about having one?  Leave a comment down below!