Some years ago I rented a house that had a wood burning fire place in the rear of the home it was a fairly smart layout as the fireplace was in the family room and there was a 3 step up area to the kitchen then small raise in each ceiling as you went through the home then the stairway going up to the bedrooms in the front of the home this allowed heat to rise then flow from room to room while new cooler air would sink and slowly move back to the room being heated.. The rear where the fire place was would still get to hot when we tried to heat most the home using the fire place even with a fair amount of brick built in around the fireplace. My solution at the time was a cheap temporary fix, we had a couch and love seat along 2 of the walls in the family room and by moving them out less than 4 inches more from the wall I started to save round 3 liter bottled water bottles we bough a fair amount of for the water itself.. they would stack on top of one another so I started lining the wall behind the love seat and couch with them stacked 2 high and by the time I was finished filling the area with refilled water bottles The temperature would stay reasonable an extra 4+ hours after the fire went out and we didn't feel over heated like we did before adding them to the room so we could run the fireplace all day if we wanted then let it go out and maintain a decent temperature most the night.. All cheap and hidden out of site and with the weight distributed.. added bonus was the dogs could no longer hide behind the couch which we was trying to break them from anyway..

Some years ago I rented a house that had a wood burning fire place in the rear of the home. It was a fairly smart layout as the fireplace was in the family room and there was a 3 step up area to the kitchen, then small raise in each ceiling as you went through the home, then the stairway going up to the bedrooms in the front of the home. This allowed heat to rise, then flow from room to room while new cooler air would sink and slowly move back to the room being heated. The rear where the fire place was would still get too hot when we tried to heat most of the home using the fire place, even with a fair amount of brick built-in around the fireplace.

My solution at the time was a cheap temporary fix. We had a couch and love seat along 2 of the walls in the family room and by moving them out less than 4 inches more from the wall I started to save round 3 liter bottled water bottles we bough a fair amount of for the water itself. They would stack on top of one another so I started lining the wall behind the love seat and couch with them stacked 2 high. By the time I was finished filling the area with refilled water bottles the temperature would stay reasonable an extra 4+ hours after the fire went out and we didn't feel overheated like we did before adding them to the room. So we could run the fireplace all day if we wanted, then let it go out and maintain a decent temperature most the night. All cheap and hidden out of sight and with the weight distributed. An added bonus was that the dogs could no longer hide behind the couch which we were trying to keep them from anyway.