Fireplaces.

A quick trip around undeveloped countryside will reveal exposed fireplaces; the lone remnants of former dwellings. The reason for this is that they were the sturdiest bits of the structures that no longer exist.

A hundred years from now, there won't be the same archeological artifacts because we have all gone whole heartedly for gas fireplaces. This is sad because our children won't have the same smoke filled rooms to clog their memories of good times and cursing by parents who forgot to open the damper.

An unvented gas fireplace has no need of a chimney, flue or damper. It just needs a gasline to feed it and can be placed anywhere in the house. You can even replicate the great dining hall from THE LION IN WINTER by placing your fireplace in the middle of the room. All you'd need would be a couple of mangy dogs fighting over the deer haunches and the illusion is complete.

The Pope-Leighey house needed its fireplace to be in the center, creating a wall between the living room and the kitchen. Frank Lloyd Wright used this, the strongest part of the house, to anchor his ceiling joists.

We're using steel instead and have moved our fireplace to the far side of the room because we, non-purists that we are, like a fire every morning by which to read our paper and sip our coffee. We don't have a cackling aroma filled room, but we do have a semblance of that which Prometheus stole from the gods and it's alot easier to flip a switch than chop firewood.

This lovely illustration show Prometheus bound, with his liver being eaten. This was the punishment that the Gods deemed fit the crime.