sorry I took so long to post--I had to dig my pictures out

I think I did what you are talking about....your raised hearth may be a problem--we took ours out when we took off the brick. We used granite as the surround/hearth that matches the granite in our kitchen (we took down 2 1/2 walls to open this space up)

We ordered cabinets about 12" deep for both sides of the fireplace. We had NO windows, so we added 2 above the cabinets. We ordered fluted colums for the sides, and plenty of solid cherry flat stock. My carpenter built out the fireplace in steps. The uprights are boxes 4" deep, then the crosspiece support for the mantle is a box 6" deep

My only regret is that the cabs are actually very small, and we don't have as much storage for our books as I would have liked--I think if I had it to do over--I would do open bookshelves the whole way across.

{{!gwi}}

and for comparison, here is the "before"

Thank you for posting your gorgeous fireplace and built ins, namabafo. I think you are right about the raised hearth, though. It will create a tunnel effect, I think. I wanted to see if anyone here had success with putting cabs next to flush fireplaces. Your cabinets don't look like they stick out at all--your carpenter did a fabulous job. And that cherry--so beautiful!
We are toying with open bookcases as another option. Although the picture doesn't show it, we now have a flat panel tv above the fireplace and we need a cabinet for the components. I am tired of looking at wires and boxes all over the place...I'm ready to finish this project!

We also had a full wall of brick--I was so happy to get rid of it! It overwhelmed the room. Your transformation is amazing :)

namabafo,
Our living room was the cousin of your room, down to the low-hanging (fake) ceiling beams. We also had lovely brown walls and red carpet. The fireplace was made not of brick, but some rectangular stone that everyone thought was fake. That's a twist: real stone imitating fake. Removing it seemed a radical thing to do at the time, but I'm so glad we did it. We also put in cherry floors, after ripping up the red and green and brown carpets revealed plywood floors underneath. Did people really like that style?? It's hard to believe!

nys, I'm not sure I picture what you mean. Will the cabinetry stand out from the fireplace, making it look sunken? If that's the case, why not build the FP out to the level of the cabinetry? It's not a major project.

namabafo, I have the same fireplace wall as your before pic. I just have to convince DH to take out the brick and get some built-ins like yours. Thanks for the pics.
nys, did u look at this thread in the remodelling forum. Stacylu has a nice pic that might work for you. I am sorry if this is the pic you were talking about in your first post.

Here is a link that might be useful: Remodelling forum thread

I was just going to post my inspiration picture for you... ours isn't done yet but I'm working on plans for it for us.

Egganddart, thank you for your suggestion. DH will be building the mantel out--but only about 5 or 6 inches. Our hearth juts out 18 inches, and we would like a cabinet depth of about 15 inches (I thought 12 would work, but DH thinks 15 would be better.) I don't want the mantel built out too far--DH did a mock up with plywood and 5-6 inches looked good.

vinudev and stacylu--Thank you! That is really what we were looking to do. I think those cabinets look good because there is a space between the hearth and the cabinets--DH is going to play around with some plywood to see if we could do something similar. We might just do the cabinets on the bottom and not the shelving on the top, which might eliminate the tunnel look.
Thanks again for your posts.

Glad that helped! Come back and show us how it turned out. I am considering something similar but I have a whole wall of brick and that makes it more difficult or atleast that's what DH says..we will see