I realize it's been awhile since you posted your question, but I'll tell you what our general contractor told us. We also have a older fireplace that looked bad and he suggested the newer cultured rock for it. I'm not sure if the brand you mentioned is the same as this, but think it's likely very similar. We opted to go with granite on the face instead and then built a surround which we just finished. Very happy with the result. Good luck with your project. It would be interesting to see your finished fireplace. If I could figure out how to post a picture I'd show you our before and after, but alas, I'm new at this and must be too dense to get the directions they have here. One of these days....

We just had this done. There are many brands of synthetic stone on the market. Owens Corning has the biggest share of the market with their Cultured Stone. This stuff is used for fireplaces all the time. Check out their website for nice photos. I know that if you want the stone to go inside the actual fireplace (the box where the logs are) they use another product in that area (the lady I bought from said "fire brick") but the synthetic stone is used all around the opening to the fireplace. We have real stone on the top of the hearth -but that was for cost and aesthetics. We had ours done and I am not happy with the workmanship-the stone however is very nice. We didnÂt use the Owens Corning-rather we went with a local manufacturer. I can hardly find a repeat and my fireplace is 14 feet tall and 8 feet wide.