Mid Century Monday #7 – vintage cone fireplace

It’s been a while since I did a Mid Century Monday so I thought I’d share a quick one today about the vintage fireplace we found!

I have been ohhing and ahhing over these things since I randomly came across this image on Pinterest.

I had never seen anything like them before, but I just felt like one of these guys belonged in our mid century home.

It probably showed up on my feed because I of all of “Mid Century Modern ” keyword searches I do. Or maybe it was reading my mind as social media seems to be able to do these days… because I instantly fell in love!

I knew nothing about it other than the fact that I had to have one.

A few Ebay and Google searches later….

I sat shocked to find that many go for over $1200, $1500, etc. Even the beat up versions needing complete paint jobs seemed to want a minimum of $500.

Yikes.

So basically for the last year I have gone to Craigslist, Ebay or Facebook Marketplace in my spare time and searched for Preway or Malm  or even Majestic or Sears (some common brand name) fireplaces only to find the same high prices.

I am in a (nerd alert) Mid Century Modern Facebook group where people can post about their homes or cool finds and it seemed like people were always scoring these things on the side. of. the. road.

WHAT?

I thought about this and eventually I realized my mistake!

The key was not searching listings by the brand names (those people knew what they had!) but just searching “old fireplace” or “vintage wood burning stove”. Even “cone fireplace” and “funky fireplace” brought up options in the $300 range.

Try to use terms that indicate it’s just something to get rid of and you’ll find people that aren’t valuing their fireplace very high.

Example of out of my price range = “mint condition mid century modern Malm cone fireplace, XYZ  edition, original paint in pristine shape, includes fire screen that has never been used and we’ll throw in a unicorn.”- $1450 you pay shipping.

Example of more my style pricing = “funky old cone shaped fireplace, works, could use a cleaning” – $300

So maybe it wasn’t side of the road price, but using the tips above we finally found one! We pulled the trigger and came away with this bright orange beauty!

This corner was cleared out to make way and  now it wants art! I am waiting until we find something perfect.

I do have these frames from Amazon (favorites!) sitting around because I ordered them as gifts but I liked them so much I had to hoard some for myself.

Maybe I’ll have to frame another shower curtain 🙂

I know many of you reading this are thinking this look is not your cup of tea, and that’s okay! But we are so happy to finally add a mid century fireplace to our mid century home that I wanted to gush about it.

Bonus–ours is electric. It’s basically a huge funky space heater. Easy to relocate and not complicated to get it generating heat. Plus it’s so pretty 🙂

Win. win. win.

That’s my little blog post for this rainy Monday. I hope any of you out there hunting for the perfect piece come across it soon. I suggest using non-specific keyword searches to find the best bargains!

Happy hunting!