Tonight was my first fire of the season.
Pretty late this year, it's gotten cold for a while now.
Unfortunately, with the painting we had going on an a couple other things. We had boxes stacked all over the house, including against the stove.
I finally got to moving some of it out of the way and brought in a few armfuls of wood.
Notice that this style of woodstove has a closed glass front. This is MUCH more efficient than a fireplace, but you still get to watch the fire.
Behind the stove, I have a stack of bricks (you can see three of them in the photo) which are back from the stove about six inches. These suck up the radiant heat the shoots off the back of the stove.
(and no, that cardboard box, and crumpled paper aren't usually there. Just the remnants of me moving things around)