Rough Linen I keep firewood in two big West Point metal trunks flanking my woodstove, with one big basket of my 'best' wood, and one of vine trimmings either side too. Neat and easy.

tsudhonimh Vermin housing! Bark scorpions, cockroaches, field mice, lizards ants, black widow spiders, wasps, wolf spiders ....

Unless you examine every piece of wood as you bring it in for all the pests that hide and hibernate in woodpiles, this is a great way to enliven your evenings when the critters come out.

rosiew tsudhonimh is dead on right about the colossal number of insects, especially, that can be making a home in your firewood. Conventional wisdom, at least in the South, is to bring into the house only what will be burned that evening.

As great looking as many of these storage options are, don't do it if you're in the South.

UCARCHITECT Do keep in mind standard firewood is cut to 16" and a "face chord" is 8' long, 4' high. Keep the wood inside for a bit to dry to reduce the amount of soot that will accumulate in the chimney.

noreaster88 I love, love the look of these rooms, but it wouldn't work here in Maine, either. Firewood often has a ton of mold spores and it can really aggravate allergies. Not to mention the insect hitchhikers, even here, although my cats do enjoy an arachnid play-toy.

Maybe if it was de-barked and dried out for several months inside and treated like home decor instead of burning it?

Amy J. Greving - Art Studio LLC As an artist who works in concrete and built this fireplace for our new home, we're loving the fact we can store plenty of wood for many fires before refilling. Please note it's only half full due to the fact we had a winter storm last night.

vee22 Obviously those people aren't serious wood burners. We here in Maine are laughing at those pictures. lol

ljfq Anyone who uses wood heat as anything more than an occasional aesthetic is laughing right along with Maine. It might take more hours to fit the firewood into these lovely cubbyholes than it would take to burn it. They are beautiful to look at, though!
For Houzz users contemplating new construction, the trap door like Photo #7 (from a mudroom, porch, garage, etc.) is the way to go. We put ours high enough in the wall to just drop the wood into a sturdily constructed woodbox that matches the hearth material.

dalisckova wonderful ideas

jimmianne I loe the way these places look, but I would never store firewood in the house - all those lovely black widows & other iffy bugs hatching right there in the living room. The other thing is - all the wood looks so uniform and clean. It's bad enough to store a day's worth next to the stove, but can't imagine storing it overhead. still, it's a great look. clean wood for looks and real wood outside the back door. perfect!

Morgan Spenla Love all of these ideas. We just made a faux stacked wood facade for our currently-not-working fireplace that fits along this theme! http://www.pepperdesignblog.com/2013/02/27/pinterest-challenge-faux-log-stack-fireplace-facade/

rosebud3 My main heating source is a wood stove. Most of these ideas shown are "pretty," but "pretty" impractical for the way I go through wood in an evening. I'd be spending my evening stacking wood to look like art and miss the enjoyment and warmth of my fire.

Kate C I agree with Rosie and Tsudhonimh - bringing firewood you plan to use (rather than sanitized wood that is for the "look" / decorations) is not a good idea. Even if you look wood over before bringing it in as the wood warms up (to house temp, or because it is right next to the fire) everything living inside will crawl out. Besides the ick factor of having bugs in the house - it is also not wise to store your wood pile directly adjacent to the house outside. Termites will easily travel from the wood pile to your home doing unbelievable damage and, wood piles are also nice homes for all sorts of rodents you wouldn't want to have proximity to the house. It is a little bit of a pain to walk out into the yard for firewood, but is well worth given the considerations.

Lou Ann Martin The comments here are all very practical re: bug, mold etc... However, whenever you have a woodburning fireplace or stove it's messy. I live in Oregon where we need a fire to just ward off the damp cold from all the rain. If I had my way I wouldn't have one at all. Our wood is stored on our back deck. Just carrying it in drags in dirt. We have no carpet in the house because of this dirt not to mention the fan on the fireplace blows this dirt all over. It look nice and cozy but it is a very drity form of heat. We even have a air filter on our heat pump and it doesn't help. I'll take my outdoor fireplace over the one inside anyday. That said, I have a big wicker truck that I put the wood in. It's lined with plastic and spread with an insect killer.

cjpines I agree with everyone here. We have a large hearth and we stack wood next to the wood stove, but I'm trying to get something more pleasing to look at, but since you all mentioned bugs in the wood I think we will just carry in what we need. I did find beetles.

nasafemme We use our woodburner non-stop from November to March and since we have a flush slate hearth, we just pile what we need for each day neatly on the hearth. We hate schlepping all that wood (piled about 50 feet away from the house) but we love our low electric bills.

Dixie Henrie It's not just in the South that bugs are in firewood. It's everywhere. The only difference is the type of bug. I would never invite the spiders inside with firewood.

Sara Parker In the Bahamas, we can apply these ideas mainly to outdoor fireplaces, which more and more people are adding to outdoor rooms.

rosebud3 Nasafemme, I am like you. I use my woodstove exclusively for heat from October through March and sometimes a day or two through May. We do have an occasional heavy wet snowstorm as late as May. I quit using my forced hot air heat (fueled by propane) the winter it started costing me $300/mo and I was still not warm. Now I spend about $300 for 6 months of propane for cooking, hot water, and clothes dryer. I use about $150/mo for wood in the coldest months, but generally more like $80/mo for wood, and am toasty warm. For me, nothing warms a house like a great wood stove. I do use a portable electric heater to warm the bathroom for my shower because the bathroom doesn't really get warm enough from the fire. The bedrooms are very comfortable for sleeping, not too warm, not cold, just cool for sleeping.

rosebud3 Also meant to say when we had the house built we had a space sectioned off in the garage that would fit a stacked cord of wood. I never have to go outside for wood, just into the garage. Being in the mountains in New Mexico, I don't have a bug problem. I live peaceably with the tiny forest spiders. I tell them as long as they stay out of the bedroom they can live, but in the bedroom they are fair game for the flyswatter, especially if on the ceiling over the bed or the wall behind the head of the bed.

jimmianne that first photo didn't show how much light I've gained.