What is the best colour for my Fireplace?

In addition to their practical benefits (as a cosy and flexible heating solution), fireplaces make a fantastic, stylish addition to a home.

Fireplaces are absolutely timeless features, and they are available in a huge range of different design styles, colours and finishes. Without a doubt, there’s something to suit every individual home and taste.

So, to help you ensure your new fireplace achieves the perfect match, keep reading.

Below, we have shared our guide to the different colours that go well with a fireplace. This includes an outline of the most effective popular colours to paint the wall and surround, as well as some ideas for vibrant, alternative colour options.

The best colours for a fireplace

If you’re looking to achieve a classical finish, which enhances the overall cosyness of your fireplace, these colours are a fantastic way to create this aesthetic.

With this goal in mind, the best colours for a fireplace wall or surround include:

• White – it may sound simple, but white is an extremely effective way to bring a crisp elegance to your fireplace. At the same time, it enhances the brightness of the fire, and ensures that your fireplace doesn’t clash with any existing features or design elements in your home. White walls are a particularly effective match for two or three-sided fireplaces.
• Dark grey – this is a great way to modernise a fireplace, and offers the perfect partner to sleek electric fireplace units. It adds drama to a room, but its neutrality means the wall would be unlikely to clash with any furnishings or features that are already in place.
• Neutral tones – such as ivory, tan or taupe. These colours are bang on-trend, and offer a middle ground between the minimalism of white or grey, and the individualism of other colours.
• Navy – this creates a modern and elegant effect, without compromising the cosy feel of a fireplace. If you like the effect that a dark grey wall creates, but it seems a bit too harsh or minimalist, then this offers a great compromise.
• Pale green – if you’re looking for a cheerful, playful colour, which is still on the subtle side, then pale green is a popular accompaniment to fireplaces. They create a soft, timeless aesthetic, which looks particularly effective alongside traditional or decorated fireplaces.
• Earthy tones – or, if you lean more towards natural shades, earthy olive green is an elegant yet personable colour choice. Thanks to its organic feel, olive green paint brilliantly complements fireplaces with wood or stone features.
• A different shade of the room’s colour – to create a subtler version of a feature wall, you could paint the fireplace wall or surrounds with the same colour as the rest of the room, but opt for a paint that’s a few shades darker or lighter.
• Two shades of the same colour – following a similar approach to the above, you could also paint the fireplace surround and fireplace wall in two shades of the same colour. This subtly makes the fireplace a focal point in the room, and creates a distinguishing effect (without requiring you to go too bold!).

Fireplace surrounds that add colour

Alternatively, if you’re looking to add a bold pop of colour, and make your fireplace a focal point or feature piece, here are some colour tips:

• Experiment with contrasting colours – this could be, for example, colours that contrast with the materials of the fireplace, or painting the fireplace wall in a contrasting colour to the rest of those in the room.
• Apply bold accent colours – popular choices include deep reds, rich blues, lavish purples, and bright yellows.
• Use dark colours – a very dark blue, green or even black is a sure-fire way to add drama to the fireplace design.
• Contrast design aesthetics – although it can be tricky to pull off, uniting two polar opposite aesthetics can create a fantastic effect. This could include an ornate and traditional fireplace surround with a stark white wall, or a sleek modern fireplace with an organic shade of forest green.

Ambient lighting for fireplaces

Today, lots of modern electric fireplaces can be built to feature custom colour-changing lights. Yet alongside this, customers can also opt for electric fireplaces that offer ambient lighting.

In fireplaces, colour-changing lights allow you to select a customised colour for the flames within the fireplace. However, ambient lighting offers an extra feature here, as they allow users to add more colour and light to the room, by fixing an ambient lighting setting of their choice.

At Rotherham Fireplace Centre, we offer this feature across many models in our range of gas and electric fireplaces, and ambient lighting is an extremely effective addition to media walls.

With our team of fireplace experts to assist you, you can devise a fireplace design that blends light and colour seamlessly, to create a stunning and completely bespoke feature.

To find out more about our range of electric fireplaces and gas fireplaces, or to receive tailored guidance from our expert team, get in touch with Rotherham Fireplace Centre.