We. Have. Heat.

Did I tell you we got our furnace up & working? It's been a few weeks (thank goodness!), but I don't think I ever told you that.

Still, we use the wood-burning fireplace as our primary source of heat, and the furnace rarely kicks on. Especially with the new doors & windows we put in.

Like, we leave for work in the morning, come back over nine hours later, and it's still 65 degrees in the house, furnace never kicked on once, even with the outside temp being in the teens the past few nights.

Wood heat is nice. It's free, for one thing. And I love the smell. Especially considering our house is nestled in a hickory grove, and we lost a few large limbs during a windstorm about 6 weeks ago, that are now providing us some good firewood. Hickory is hardwood, which means that it burns long (ie. one decent sized log will burn all night), and it smells awesome. Think hickory-smoked bacon. Yum! There's a reason they use hickory for that stuff.

Wood heat does have it's drawbacks though. Having wood in the house pretty much means that the fireplace room will never be 100% clean during the winter months. Because with the wood comes traces of leaves, twigs, dirt, bark, and the lovely wood roaches that we discovered in our home (now gone). And with the fire comes ashes and soot, and it makes your house more dusty than usual.
And then there are the splinters. Before this year I couldn't tell you the last time I'd gotten a splinter. Now? Several times a week.

And I burned my finger earlier this week. Wasn't paying attention while putting wood in and touched the edge of the insert. Owie!

And you have to start the fire every time you come home.

And tend to it while you're there. Like all the time. Because if you forget, it goes out and you have to start all over, which is just annoying.

But overall? Yeah, I like this wood heat thing.

And did I mention that it's free?