• Chicken waterer
• Homesteading books

As you've all probably figured out by now, we opted for the Jotul F 602 wood stove.  Although the princess seemed tiny as we drove her home, staggering down the hallway with her 160 pound weight seemed to swell her ego and she looked larger the closer she got to her alcove.

I'm very glad we opted for one of the smallest stoves out there, because the required clearances for even the tiny Jotul F 602 are pretty extreme --- 21 inches on each side, 13.5 inches off the back (18 inches if you use single walled stove pipe), and then an 18 inch hearth off the front.  Assuming you send the stove pipe straight up rather than out the back, that's a 21 square foot area taken up by our little darling.

Luckily, there are ways to safely lessen your clearances --- a heat shield on the back of the wood stove, heat shields on the walls, and double walled stove pipe.  We didn't opt to use every one of these features, but if we had, we could have lowered the princess's footprint to 11 square feet.  The heat shields on the walls felt like enough for us since they can be homemade and will cut down the huge side clearances to a mere 13 inches.

We probably won't slide her into her new home until around Thanksgiving since we still need to finish the inside of the alcove, but the princess already has a place of honor in our living room.  Both cats have even hopped inside and proclaimed her worthy.  (This is Strider, who is such a shy cat he even hides his face in photos.)