Ignore the mantel decor in the photo below, it looks a lot better now. :)

Our new room was built specifically for the FP because we desperately needed one in case we had more winter power outages. We went 3 weeks with no heat one time.

Can you show a picture of your room w/the FP?

{{!gwi}}

I love the stone fireplace! That really looks great.

We have a sloped ceiling to deal with in our room. The painting over the mantel could always be moved into our foyer. I just feel like the fireplace needs more of a presence in this room. I'd love to have a hearth I could actually sit on. The current one is flush to the floor. Our home construction is traditional and has lots of white crown molding. I'm not sure what I could do in here. I really like the stone fireplaces, but would something like that look good in here especially with our sloped ceiling (we used paint to treat it as part of the red wall).

oak your fireplace is beautiful and every time I see it I feel as though it has loads of history to tell.

I agree seeing a picture of your fireplace and the room it's in would also help us give you ideas.

Well .. here's the two front room mantels.

Before family room : ( under sized badly made bookcases, painted surround )

During :

After :

Before : ( best pic I have .. this was previous owners awful mess! )

During : ( We put up wainscotting to tie in the height of the mantle )

After : ( table has since been painted black, we were experimenting *LOL* )

Zipdee, the structure of your fireplace works perfectly with your architecture. It looks like your home has a lot of character to begin with. I really like what you have done with your space!

Thanks Doonie, the mantles are original to the house .. but they had been so remuddled, nothing flowed here. Not to mention the hearths were removed and the brick surround covered with sheetrock. It just took tying it all together cohesively.

Is it possible for you to post pics of your room and fireplace? It would really help out for us to see how it's not working with your decor and what needs to be re-done.

Pretty rooms and fireplaces...I have a freestanding European woodstove so pics won't help. But when I looked at your beautiful room, I wondered if you'd thought of adding more wood molding to integrate the fireplace and windows into a more cohesive unit? It would give the fireplace more importance on that wall...I didn't find any windows exactly like yours but these pics kind of represent what I mean if you imagine the bookcases as your windows:

[traditional family room design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-family-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_720~s_2107) by atlanta interior designer Mary Trantow

[family room design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/family-room-ideas-phbr0-bp~t_720) by charlotte general contractor Grainda Builders, Inc.

[traditional family room design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-family-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_720~s_2107) by raleigh general contractor Blue Sky Building Company

[traditional living room design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-living-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_718~s_2107) by charleston interior designer LORRAINE G VALE, Allied ASID

Olychick, I like those ideas. Thanks for taking the time to post so many photos. I think where I'm really having trouble visualizing things like that working is where the sloped intercept of the ceiling hits the vertical of the wall. It's so hard to finish off an area like that to look good. I do think that I need to achieve more cohesion on that wall to tie in with the windows.

Keep all of these lovely ideas coming and please share your own fireplaces!

D'oh! Doonie .. I didn't realise that was your picture, Sorry!

Hmm .. I actually think your mantel is very nice. I can't really see in my head an overmantle with the two side windows, which add, I think a lot of presence to your room all ready.

No problem Zipdee! I figured you'd see that!

Our current fireplace has shiny black marble and that fake brass liner around the outside, which really bother me. The logs need to be upgraded because I know there's safer logs out there. Plus the dentil molding is actually some sort of wierd styrofoam stuff and I'm not digging the squareness of it. My favorite spot, in the winter is sitting in front of the fire, so I'd love to have a hearth to sit on.

I'm not sure though, if the expense and frustration is worth it, but it's really beginning to nag at me. I'd love to get more ideas and opinions before meeting with a contractor.

Well, I know you've seen at least one of mine but here they are (in progress) in case it helps:

Here is the fireplace that we installed. We wanted a mantel that was very traditional to fit with the rest of our home - which is about 40+ years old.

My husband installed the fireplace, mantel, tile and made the hearth.

Beagles, Count me as one of those who are thoroughly enjoying seeing you build your dream house! Your fireplaces are beautiful. My room has a sloping ceiling like your photo #2 shows, so I find that treatment very interesting & something to consider in my space. However, I think my room size overall is not big enough to deal with that amount of space encroachment, especially since I have a huge entertainment center to the left that already moves into the footprint of the room. It's shaker style and has a very dark stain on it. I think I need to go with simpler lines.

Haley, I really like the simplicity of your mantel. Once again I am flabbergasted at the skill of all of you who can do these DIY projects! Your hearth is about the size I think I want.

Once I get a bee in my bonnet it's all over. I've called the contractor to come over tomorrow and give me ideas and cost outlays. Any ideas that come in are welcome!

Doonie,

Our old house had 7 fireplaces. LR, FR, DR, MBR, 2 other BR, and the billiard room (walk out basement). All original to the 1904 house. We aren't done on our new house (been living here about 7 months) and I think the only fpl photos I have are from the PO, will find those and post too...

We never touched the mantles, since they were all original and all fit the house. My favorite one was in our MBR, it was an almost sculptural scene of people and horses i think.

The surrounds were a different matter. The bedrooms all had original mini subways. The MBR was school bus yellow, i covered it with cream marfil slab. The other two BR i liked, a deep green and very pale blue. The dining room had been changed in the 60s to what my DH calls "U.N. granite" ... sparkly dark gray. Redid it in a carrera slab. I wish I had gotten around to doing the LR -- it was a very 80s dark green marble.

dining room - new marble surround{{!gwi}}

living room - i'm sure someone put in the green marble, looks 80s to me
{{!gwi}}

family room - i liked this and kept it as is{{!gwi}}

mbr - got rid of "school bus yellow" tile{{!gwi}}

kids bedroom
{{!gwi}}

guest bedroom
{{!gwi}}

basement
{{!gwi}}

We recently redid our adjacent kitchen floor with travertine, so I'm wondering about a travertine sort of mantel to pull in that other space. Then, do I install more stone above the mantel like in Beagles space, of that same color or leave the wall color like in Haley's space. Should it travel all the way up to the sloped ceiling?

Here's some photos that I like:

1

2

Or could I do more of a chiseled stone look?

3

4

I'd love it if you voted!

Mtrdredux, I am drooling over that white marble surround. It's like a piece of Bach music to my eyes! I wonder if I could incorporate a creamy marble into my space? Thanks for all the wonderful fireplace photos! What a joy to have so many!

There are 4 fpl in our new home. DR, FR, MBR and LR. We added the LR one, so that photo is our decor. The rest are from listings. Their style was not ours, but I think they had great style. I wish I had their art collection, for one!

PO's FR
{{!gwi}}

PO's DR
{{!gwi}}

PO's MBR
{{!gwi}}

New fpl we installed in our erstwhile "living room"{{!gwi}}

Doonie - Thanks. the great thing about the marble around my fpl is that is was a 200 remnant! I think it was another 200 to install.

Carrera is so popular there are a lot of remnants floating around.

Doonie, I just saw your photos! I love the windows flanking the fpl. I think the fpl may pop more if you used a lighter surround, but I would not go stone all the way up --- your room seems to formal for that.

I like choice 2.

You may want to start with the innards, though. We put in a gas fpl by town and country and I like it a lot. A lot of what you don't like may be specs for your unit, so you need to decide on that.

Zipdee --- i love those mantels with mirrors built in!

Thanks doonie. I really like the travertine look for your room better than the stone because I think the travertine goes better in your more formal room. Stone could work too though, we did the stone in the formal great room and I don't think it looks rustic (maybe I'm wrong)

I am also partial to the fireplace doing all the way up rather than just having the colored wall above it (obviously, since I did that on all of mine). I just think it gives the fireplace more of a presence if it does all the way up.

That sunroom fireplace in the sloped ceiling room originally was not supposed to be all the way out like that but I had them bump it again because I wanted more or a presence. But, I think you could achieve the same effect if you do not take yours out so far.

Mtnrdredux, Thanks for the input. I think you are absolutely correct. I need a lighter surround. Sometimes it takes another eye to see things from another perspective. Choice 2 is my favorite too, although, it still looks a little too imposing scale wise, but I'm sure I can adjust that. My unit is crappy and some quick install job by the builder, so that may be a large part of it too. Thanks so much for your help. I'll be looking at the Town Country now.

Doonie there's some gorgeous looking marble ones on eBay you might want to look at if you are looking for something in a lighter carved stone. I just googled "french fireplace" and there were a whole bunch in different shades including creamy ones. If they could work w/ your dimensions, it might be really gorgeous, although they say they can work w/ any size...

Fireplace on eBay.

Beagles, Thanks for the ebay link. The fireplace you linked is very beautiful, but too ornate for me to live with everyday. I do think it is gorgeous and would work well in someone else's space.

The ebay idea is a good one though. As far as how high up the fireplace goes....I'm very undecided. We had an entertainment cabinet custom built of solid maple that is to the left of this fireplace. It has a defined television area space, which at the time seemed fine, but now is a real PIA to deal with. It really is massive, so it would look better to counter it with a similarily weighted fireplace for balance, but it's really hard to say what that is exactly.

Anyway, like I said before, it is shaker style and takes up nearly the entire left wall. I really like the piece on its own, especially because it was in support of a local woodworker. I think it does define the tone of the room, however, which sways me away from the more ornate styles.

Our 1825 house had at one time 14 fireplaces and/or stoves. This is back when they only heated by FP. We're now down to 11 including 3 in the attic (for the servants in the 1800's). The 1st floor fireplaces are all marble. Each one is different and some more beautiful than others. The one in the DR has been painted for years. I need to figure out how to strip it. On the 2nd floor the mantels are all painted wood. The 3rd floor just had the working part of the FP - no mantels or surrounds. We have a mix of wood burned FP and coal. During our renovations we uncovered a FP on the 1st floor and will find a surround for it. We also uncovered the brick wall (that was always covered) so it looks really "rough". The brick was never meant to be uncovered and the brick isn't as smooth as the exposed brick. I may just do a thick piece of wood for the mantel. This will be in the billiard room. My wood surrounds on the 2nd floor look like haley comet's above. I don't have any good pictures of the FP on the 1st floor.

doonie can you have that woodworker come back and build you a fireplace that coordinates with the cabinetry?

Something really nice out of the same wood w/ maybe a creamy marble surround?

{{!gwi}}

Sorry, don't know why the pic won't link right. Try here:
http://timberd.com/Fireplaces.aspx

for pic idea...

Bostonpam, I'd love to see your fpl. Did someone paint over marble?

I just had the GC over who is going to coordinate this project. We decided to switch to vented gas logs, which will also allow us to have a larger fireplace. Since we have a creamy kitchen with travertine flooring adjacent to this room, his thought was to bring some of that cream into this room with a stone mantel & hearth.

Beagles, thanks for the link! Those are some very nice looking fireplaces. Since that room is so dark, I think I want to keep the fireplace light. Either with a wood or stone mantel. I don't want the price to skyrocket, so we will be making budgetary choices, which means no carved marble. Ah well....

Bostonpam, I'd love to see pictures of the fireplaces! They sound very interesting.

I remain open to ideas & thoughts while figuring out this project.

This shows the kichen, with it's creamy travertine flooring, that is adjacent to the great room.

My fireplace isn't even in the league of the rest of the ones posted. It is the bane of my existence. Well maybe not that bad but it's difficult to work with because it is a corner fireplace and makes furniture layout difficult. Not to mention difficult to decorate because it is so tall and long. But love love it in the winter! Ingore the emptiness of it, I had just added molding and painted the mantel.

Thanks alot Doonie - of all our DIY's the fireplace is my favorite.
Our house is DIY top to bottom for 4 years straight - with 4 kids its DIY or don't do it at all. Luckily there is not much my husband can't do and what he doesn't have experience with he learns online and tackles the project seemlessly...its awesome. His famous saying is "that took longer then I thought"...lol Its slower then hiring out but the savings are incredibile.
Cheers,
Haley

This may have already been mentioned, but I think you should think long and hard before building a raised hearth in front of the fireplace. I had one in my last home and hated it. Yes, it looked great but it interfered with furniture placement, was a knee knocker, and was not the ideal place to sit and enjoy the fire since within a minute we'd find the fire too hot to sit that close to. If we continued sitting on the hearth and moved away from the fire, then we were too cold.
IMO, you'll enjoy it more by creating a seating area around the fireplace...........

Annz, you bring up a good point about the raised hearth encroaching on the furniture area. I'll have to look more closely at that. Right now, I often end up sitting right in front of the fire, so I think I'd like it raised a little since it would be more comfortable. I think I like the style more too, so that I have some light continuation of stone around the bottom, as well as the top. I'll look closely at clearance for furniture.

Itltrot, we use our fireplace all of the time during the winter too! We keep the house fairly cold, so much so that one year we didn't even realize the furnace wasn't working til mid season!

Haley, how wonderful to have such a handyman! I am so amazed at all of the DIY work. It wouldn't ever get done at my house.

Keep the FP eye candy coming! Doonie, you love fires like we do! We've got the wood ready, now we're waiting for it to get cold during the day. lol

I like the idea of a raised hearth. Does that mean you'd literally have to raise the whole fireplace?

What about a bench similar to mine going to the left of your FP where the windows are? When we have company over in the winter, I sit on the bench next to the FP and it's really comfy. I also sit there when I need a quick warmup!

I've since added a folded quilt to the bench to make it a bit comfier and to add color to the area.

Oakleyoak, yes, I love turning the fire on first thing in the morning too, to take the chill out of the air. The bench is a great way to add seating to your room. We used that idea for our outdoor woodburning fireplace and we love the extra seating.

In our room the entertainment center comes out too far on that far side to have a bench. The whole firebox will have to be raised to put a hearth in. We have a ventfree fireplace now, and fortunately it does have a chimney, so the change over to a vented shouldn't be too costly.

Here's some more photos I found of possible surrounds (comments welcome)...

5

6

7

8

9

None of them are exactly right proportionally, but I like 9 best so far. It'll probably end up an amalgam.

You can't really tell from my photo but our hearth is raised across the whole fireplace. I love it. I often sit in front of it and if I get to warm I'll scoot down some.

This picture show the hearth a little better. It's also a place for stuff to clutter. LOL

I love the curves of #7 and #9. *insert hearts here*

Itlrot, your hearth provides a lot of seating room! I wonder if one of the reasons people, like Antz, have trouble with hearths is the placement in the room. Being a corner fireplace, no one would be walking past the hearth to bump their shins. I think in my room too, I won't have that worry since there isn't a walk way near the fireplace.

I like the curvier mantels better too!

Here's the painted marble fireplace with paint flaking off. One estimate was $1000 minimum to strip it. When the room was redone in 1914 they added natural woodwork so it was probably too dark. You can see one section of red I tried out in the room (lived with 4)but still haven't painted yet. 40+ panels in red will take a long time. That FP will take time to strip too.

Here's another marble fireplace in the sitting room. This was a coal fireplace. Just using it for candles now.

So many projects and so little time....

This is the fireplace style of the past owner, pic taken before we moved in.
The mantel seemed all wrong- we reused it. The brass framing of the wood burning fireplace was plated and buffed into frosted pewter color. You have to look close to see it is brass here. Next post for the new pic-----

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/cheerpeople/picture-uh5f0fa75831efe89f9b07cf9aa8e752d-psb2bb12b48b2237535b6ca1f85b168269-1.jpg?t=1309827283

Here is a link that might be useful: before

Here is the after- oh we moved the mantel to a lower height. Thankfully this stack stone can be moved. Oh and thanks to gordman's I just found these metal perforated 'covers' for those ugly intake vents for the fireplace above the mantel. I attached them with a magnet . The one on the right needs a stronger magnet. You get idea. I think this restained mantel fits better than the loud oak color.

Here is a link that might be useful: just this week

Bostonpam, those old marble fireplaces really lend a ton of character to your home. It's hard to believe someone painted over that beautiful stone. What a lot of work to undo!

Cheerpeople, thank you for posting a before and after of the fireplace redo. It looks great in your space! The plating and buffing of the brass was a great solution. How long did this project take you?

Bostronpam, there is a chemical remover designed for that but tits very dangerous (you can google it). What a pretty and unusual strone in the LR!

Sorry for the OT question! Mtrdredux - Do you remember what paint color you used in your old dining room and family room?

thx Donnie,
The plating guy took 3 weeks to get enough stuff to run that metal color.
Then he didn't like the buffing and redid it a week later so 4 weeks.
the whole thing- has been 5 months of figuring it out as we go :)

Just an update, I got the quote back from the GC on redoing the mantel and it is much much more than I want to pay.

Now I am considering Mtnrdredux's recommendation of changing out the logs/insert. Also, I am looking into changing out the black marble surround to a lighter polished stone, and leaving the hearth flat for better furniture clearance.

Hi Doonie, I just now saw this post....it sounds like you were looking at stone or cast concrete surrounds. I initially thought that is what I wanted as well, until we got into the build process and it didn't seem to go with the tone of what we were doing. Our fireplace is very prominent in our house, basically the front door opens into the foyer and the family room with the fireplace on the opposite wall is what you first see. I wanted something with presence and heft, that would help showcase our dd's portrait. Our trim carpenter and designer and I came up with this and I love it. It wasn't expensive relatively, since it was paint grade wood, and I think it looks appropriate scale-wise and with the marble. Maybe you could do an overmantle like this up to your sloped ceiling?

Nini, what a beautfiful room! And what a perfect picture to put over the FP!

Doonie, you make a good point about furniture clearance. I wouldn't get rid of my bench for anything but I have to admit it does limit in how I place furniture.

Maybe you can visualize another way to arrange your LR furniture so you can have the ledge you want to sit on? I'd hate to see your "dream" go. :(

Nini, what a beautiful fireplace! I really like the light marble surround. What kind of marble is it?

Oakleyok, the good thing is that I have a ledge to sit on at the outside fireplace. I'm already overly fortunate to have so much that I love! We use that room more for tv watching than visiting, so I think the loss of the ledge isn't as bad as I first thought. We have a Hearth and Patio store near by so I might see what ideas they might have.

We recently renovated our great room -- including our '80s brick fireplace with hearth. No before photos -- but what a difference! Our ceiling is sloped as well.

{{!gwi}}