I redid our DR fpl in our oldhouse in white marble. It was not a tile, it was a slab. It was a remnant and very reasonable ( I think it was like 200 for the slab and 300 install?)

It was not a fpl we used often, but we did not have discoloration if that is your concern. Will this look match your kitchen?

Well, marble is an igneous rock if I remember correctly, so it should have excellent heat resistance. I have seen real marble hearths - they are gorgeous - so you should be fine with marble around the fireplace. I would worry more about the grout....

I honestly don't like that look at all. Marble slab is pretty traditional, but the tiles look somewhat kitcheny/bathroomy. And while we could debate how soon subways will go out of style in non-period kitchens, I think they'll go out sooner for applications outside of rooms with running water. I think this look will be seen as over the top high tide of subways and marble.

Marble is metamorphic, actually, not igneous. It is subject to thermal shock.

That's right, I got mixed up in the terminology.... Marble is a metamorphic rock caused by heat and pressure transforming the original limestone. Granite is igneous. Of course it still follows that marble can stand up to heat just fine.
Thanks marcolo!

mtnrdredux: Thanks for the info! Maybe I should check out some remnants around here. This look is pretty much the same as our kitchen - do you think it will be too much of the same? I'm so challenged at coordinating things so I usually just make them match. But I'd love ideas of how to make the rooms be different but still flow! The bookcases will match the cabinetry of our kitchen and mantle style hood, but I could still change that as well. Our kitchen has raised panel doors (husband really preferred them and our regular room doors are raised panel so we thought they went with our house better), but I love the look of flat panel doors but didn't think you could/should mix that up. Thoughts?!?

NatalieChantal: I hadn't thought about that . . . I've also seen lots of marble mantels in old homes so I guess it should be an ok surround. The grout probably would be the problem!

marcolo: Thanks for your honesty. The more I think about it the more I'm thinking that maybe I just like the texture and variation you see with the tile. What would you think of some type of "rock/stone"? Do you have any other recommendations?

How old is your house? In the house where I put a while marble slab, we have many fireplaces. Most of the bedrooms had a glazed subway in running bond, but they were minis .... maybe 2x6? ir even smaller. Some were great colors, some were not, all were circa 1900-5

Can you take a cue from history?

Moroccan and encaustic are also hot, if they go in your space. IMHO it's a pretty inexpensive change, so go trendy if you LOVE something ...

Moi, j'adore marble! I mean white marbles. Yummy. I kinda like the look of the mini-tiles, but I didn't have my reading glasses on when I opened this thread so thought they were in a herringbone pattern, which I *really* liked! Then I put on my glasses and thought they (as pictured) looked kinda boring & bathroomy (no offense) .... I do like the herringbone idea and mtnrdredux's tip of slabs.

It is *so* subjective how matchy to get. Our kitchen is white white white: white recessed panel cabs with white (calacatta) marble countertops / backsplash, white wainscoting. Our kitchen looks onto the FR yet in there I knew it needed color. I could feel it. So the cabinetry which surrounds the fireplace is the color of pure sunshine-butter yellow, and the door styles in no way shape or form resemble what we have in the kitchen: they're frames with a teensy bit of ornamentation and instead of a solid panel we either have mirrors or fretwork. The mantle and above are painted sludge green, the tiles are Delft I had painted of our children and pets.

Ostensibly it's a "great room": the kitchen's ceiling is "only" 10' whilst the FR is double-height, so there is a visual break between the two rooms. And to me the two spaces called for different things. I think our decorating style and all the trim we added unify the spaces (the whole house), and in specific to the kitchen and FR they "make sense" both as a whole and on their own.

I'd like to know more about how your two rooms connect to visualize having the same door style, the same colors.

**Without the context of knowing your floorplan**, my initial thought is it would be nice to have some sort of visual distinction betwixt your two spaces, to not have the exact same cabinetry in the exact same finish (color) -- so it won't look like a spec house (where every cab is the exact same throughout the house).

Good luck!

It looks like these are trying to look like a cross between marble and bricks (because the subway tile is similar to the shape of the edges of bricks in a brick fireplace). I think I'd prefer slab or larger format tiles. I think that it's fine to do something that uses the same materials as the kitchen but makes some changes to differentiate the two parts of the room.

We are in the process of making similar decisions for our 2nd phase of the family room kitchen remodel. Our style is transitional - the kitchen cabinets are natural cherry shaker (flat doors). For the family room part of the room, we wanted to do something a little different so that the cabinets say "we aren't the kitchen, this is the family room" and so they are more like furniture. We will be doing natural cherry, raised panel, mitered doors, but still a fairly simple door style. It's something that I think will go with the kitchen cabinetry in style but have subtlety different feel.

For the fireplace surround, we are using the same quartzite as the kitchen (we had remnants from the kitchen slabs). We will be using a black "granite" (probably basalt or dolerite). We looked at that because we were a bit short on remnants to do the hearth in our Azul do Mar, but I think it will actually look better than doing the whole thing in the kitchen stone. The black will ground it and will go with the fireplace. We replaced the inefficient open fireplace with an EPA II fireplace that burns clean enough to be legal to use on most "no burn" days.

(BTW, I've been posting questions about our familyroom fireplace wall renovation which also includes getting rid of the paneling in kitchen walls and floor for the whole area plus the breakfast room without marking them OT. I'm not quite clear on whether it's off topic when remodeling areas that are part of the same room as the kitchen - I can enjoy the entertainment system and the fire while I cook.)

Sorry everyone for the late response! My son got poison ivy from head to toe so we've been a bit sidetracked here!!! Anyway . . .

mtnrdredux: Our house was built in the mid-90s, and is probably best described as a transitional colonial with no particular style inside. I've been told that the crown that was here when we purchased the house is from all different periods, as is true with the various wainscoting. I still have SOOO much to learn about styles (after reading so much on this site I now realize that I should have done this BEFORE we started major renovations!), but I'm trying to make it work! This was supposed to be our 3-5 year house but we fell in love with the neighborhood and we've all made great friends here, so we decided to renovate! I agree though that the fireplace surround is an inexpensive change so I'll try not to stres over this one! Your kitchen and FR sound beautiful!!

rmkitchen: Thanks! No offense ever taken here! I have so much to learn and just appreciate every bit of advice I get!!! I don't have any pictures of our space at the moment, our kitchen is totally open to our eat-in-kitchen, and the family room is open to that by a pretty large opening, so if you stand in our eat-in-kitchen and look to the right you see the mantel hood over the range and if you look to the left you see the mantle over the fireplace. The two mantels will have similar lines, but perhaps slightly different door styles (raised in the kitchen and the same door but with a flat panel in the living room -- we have some flat panel drawers in the kitchen)?!?

cloud swift: Sounds like I should start looking at slabs! I had really wanted something more textural and informal, but I can't seem to find any inspriational pictures that DH likes either. As for the cabs, I definitely want the FR to say "I'm not the kitchen!" and I don't want it to look like a builder just threw it all in without thought, so I'm starting to think that going with a slightly different cab style (maybe even color) would look better. And thanks for the info. on OT etiquette!!

this is my current fireplace

Planning on doing something like this with a stacked stone like these two fireplace pictures adding the white mantel above

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Erinct, I wasn't trying to lay down the rules of OT etiquette. To me the topic was in a grey area and I argued with myself a bit on whether to mark it OT or not. Sorry to hear about the poison ivy - that can be hard on the sufferer and his family. I hope he is feeling much better now.

For textural and informal, someone had a fireplace with long thin stone kind of stacked on edge. To me, the pictures that you posted look pretty formal because of the style of the wood columns, mantle and, on the top one wall detail above the mantle.

Here's our fireplace waiting for the surround

Here is a close-up of the fireplace with a sample of the stone for the surround, cherry door (right material, but in the kitchen door style), and a piece of the maple flooring. We don't have a sample of the black stone that will be the hearth extension on the floor.

Our surround will be pretty simple; just the stone covering the drywall under the mantle and a simple thick cherry mantle.

The family room cabinet doors will be in this style, but natural cherry:

rtwilliams: I love the stacked stone look! Do you get that at a tile store or a stone yard? I really like your inspiration picture as well -- it's going to look beautiful in your space! One question though . . . if you do that on the upper part what do you put on the floor? We have to do something on our floor because our hardwood floors frame what's currently there (tile).

cloud swift: Is the long thin stone one you saw similar to the one rtwilliams posted? I really like that look. I wish we could have used the stone we had in our kitchen but there wasn't enough to even do what you're doing. But maybe there would be enough for the floor part. My guess is that it's already gone though. Thanks for posting your pictures. They were very helpful!!

erin: It was similar to rtwilliams, but the stones look thinner. The link to the thread is below. The fireplace is about 2/3 of the way down. At the bottom of the thread, you also can see the stacked stone fireplace wall above the counters. That one has slab stone for the hearth extension (that's what the thing on the floor is called in our fireplace installation manual) in the same tone as the stacked stone. It goes well, IMO. It looks like they did something similar in the two inspiration pictures that you posted.

Your fabricator might be able to find a suitable remnant. Our fabricator said he could find a remnant to use for our black hearth extension, but we found a small slab that was relatively inexpensive and didn't want to risk delaying our project or not being happy with what he found.

The fireplaces in rtwilliams pictures may be gas since two are above wood floors without a hearth extension on the floor.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stacked stone fireplace in thread

erinct - I don't know where you would get the stacked stone at, we haven't gotten that far in our remodel. I will ask the builder the next time we go to the model house. We saw it at the model home and loved it. No grout just dry stacked.

Our fireplace and the model home ones are gas only. for the hearth extension I think a slab of travertine, limestone or granite that coordinated with the stone would look nice.

Here's backlighted Onyx fireplace surround.

Gary

Here's a preview of how our fireplace granite came out. I'm waiting for my DH to send some more pictures before posting a thread.

Have you thought about using soapstone? We love ours in the kitchen.

great timing for this thread and we are debating similar things.

renorman - do you have any pics? we are considering soapstone as an option and I'd love to see what you did.

cloud swift: Thanks for the link and your preview -- it's beautiful!

rtwilliams: I'm hoping to look into the surround this week. I'll let you know what I find out too!

dodge59: That's an amazing work of art . . . but probably way too comlicated for us! How do you backlight such a thing?!? I think that would put my GC over the edge if I threw that at him! : )

renorman: I haven't thought of using soapstone, but I always love it in the finished kitchens I see! I'll check it out!

Andi K: renorman posted lots of pics in a thread about backsplashes. If you search for "renorman" and "backsplash" you should see it. HTH!

Here is a picture of our fireplace with soapstone. It was hard to get a decent picture. If you need a better one let me know. We also did one in black granite that turned out great. Hope it helps!

Here is a link that might be useful: