Raised vs. Flush Hearth Fireplaces

When designing your dream home, there are some decisions that are needed VERY early on in the design phase. Surprisingly, selecting between raised or flush hearths for the fireplaces in your future custom home is one of those decisions. Having a raised vs. flush hearth will affect several aspects of your home’s design moving forward, especially as it relates to space planning. That’s why it’s critical to have this particular conversation with your Dream Team (architect, custom builder, and interior designer) while you are still fleshing out your home’s preliminary floor plan.

Each member of your Dream Team will look at this decision through a different lens; your interior designer will care about future furniture placement, space flow, and finished aesthetic, while your architect will be concerned with accurate plan development, and your custom builder will consider code compliance and constructability.

While it might seem like a small decision compared to other features or finishes, the style of hearth you choose—raised or flush—can significantly impact the look of your space as well as how well it functions for you and your family. Let’s walk through the key differences to help you decide what’s right for your home.

What is a Fireplace Hearth?

To start, let’s review what a fireplace hearth is exactly. The hearth is the base of your fireplace that extends outside the firebox onto a raised platform or flush with the floor. Building codes require that wood and gas fireplaces have a hearth made from non-combustible material. It serves both a safety and design function, protecting your flooring from sparks and framing your fireplace as an architectural feature.

Raised Hearth

A raised hearth sits elevated from the floor, typically 12–18 inches high, but sometimes lower than that, depending on the desired aesthetic of the finished fireplace.

Pros:

• Extra Seating: A raised hearth creates a natural ledge that doubles as a seat for guests or a cozy spot to warm up by the fire. This is why outdoor fireplaces nearly always include a raised hearth.

• Visual Presence: The elevation makes the fireplace feel more substantial and can become a focal point in larger rooms with tall ceilings.

• Defined Boundary: The step-up can help visually separate the fireplace from the rest of the floor, adding a sense of structure.

• Traditional Feature: A raised hearth can be a welcome addition to homes with a traditional aesthetic, as it historically served heating and cooking purposes in older homes.

Things to Consider:

• Furniture Layout: The protrusion can limit how close you can place rugs or furniture to the fireplace. This can make space planning a challenge.

• Accessibility and Flow: For households with older adults or small children, the raised edge can be a tripping hazard.

• Style: Works best in traditional, rustic, or lodge-inspired designs where the fireplace is meant to feel grand and anchored.

• TV Placement: If you plan to place your TV above your fireplace’s mantle, having a raised hearth can ultimately make your TV too high for comfortable viewing.

• Cost: Depending on the material used, incorporating a raised hearth can be more expensive than a flush hearth.
• Proportionality: For a room with lower ceilings, a raised hearth can sometimes add too much visual weight to a space, making the features in a room feel disproportional.

Flush Hearth

A flush hearth (sometimes called “zero clearance” or “floor-level hearth”) is built even with the flooring so there’s no raised platform extending out from the firebox.

Pros:

• Clean, Modern Look: Perfect for transitional, modern, or even updated traditional styles where sleek lines are the goal.

• Furniture Flexibility: Without a raised ledge, you can place furniture or rugs closer, maximizing usable floor space.

• Accessibility and Flow: Easy for children, pets, or older family members to navigate without a trip hazard.

Things to Consider:

• No Seating Ledge: You won’t gain the extra perch space that a raised hearth provides.

• Less Visual Weight: In a room with soaring ceilings, a flush hearth may feel too understated unless balanced with strong materials on the fireplace surround..

• Construction Considerations: Your custom builder should be sure to notch out a layer of the foundation before framing begins so that the finished base of the hearth ends up being truly flush with the finished flooring of the space. Otherwise, there will be a chance that your flush hearth ends up not being flush and instead sticks up 1”-1.5” above the flooring surrounding it. In a custom home, this is unacceptable.

How to Decide for Your Home

Here are a few questions we ask homeowners when guiding this decision:

1. How do you picture using your fireplace? Is it purely aesthetic, or do you imagine people gathering close and sitting around it?
2. What’s your design style? Raised hearths tend to complement traditional or rustic homes, while flush hearths suit modern, clean-lined spaces.
3. What’s the scale of your room? A raised hearth adds weight in a large, open space, while a flush hearth helps small rooms feel bigger.
4. Who lives in your home? If safety and accessibility are priorities, flush may be the better choice.
5. Where do you plan to put your TV in the room? If a TV will be placed above the fireplace mantle, then the finished height must be figured out now in order to ensure comfortable viewing.

Curious about what other questions you should consider when designing fireplaces in your custom home? Visit our previous blog post here.

Final Thoughts

Your fireplace is more than just a source of warmth—it has the potential to be a statement piece in your custom home. Whether you choose a raised hearth for its presence and seating potential, or a flush hearth for its sleek and flexible design, the right choice comes down to how you live and what makes you feel most at home.

Your Dream Team (architect, custom builder, and interior designer) should guide you through details like this so that every decision—big or small—supports both the function and feel of your dream home.