Definitely a corner FP. Most houseplans have them in the middle of a wall and it will restrict you in furniture and TV placement. Unless it's a short wall with built-in's on either side. A corner FP will free up all the walls for furniture, TV and windows. I love our FP in the corner. We have a TV on one wall along with a window, and the other wall has plenty of wall space along with two large windows. This way we can enjoy the view (we're in the country), TV and FP at the same time.

We did a gut renovation of our entire house down to studs and hired a design build firm. The firm came with a designer and she chose everything for us including everything you have mentioned and lighting. There were a certain number of hours included and then I paid her hourly. The only thing she didn't do was window coverings because I wasn't ready for that decision. When we moved back into the house then I hired a separate interior decorator and she charged an initial 2 hour consultation rate and then it was the charge for whatever we chose - window treatments, furniture, etc. There are so many different ways of doing this and for me it was a matter of just talking to people and finding someone with my own vision of my home. I have a post and beam house and they do lend themselves to a certain decorating direction.

To get the best answers for your area, find and talk to someone who specilizes in installing fireplaces. Here around Madison WI I used a place called United Brick & Fireplace, but there are 4-5 others, this is just the one my builder recommended. DH wanted the old fashion heat sucking open fireplace that would be pretty and sound and smell like a wood fire. I wanted something that would heat the house offer the ambience of a fireplace, but not the heat sucking effect. Like a free-standing wood stove. We discovered you can get a hi-eff wood stove that is set into a masonary fireplace! The door will open on the front when hubby wants the crackle & smell, it won't suck heat out of the house, and it will offer the firelight and heat. Bonus! some of them you can even order a cooking arm and pot to cook over the fire. Anyhow we went with this one. Montecito Fireplace but the place installing ours had several options available.

This door will be removed. BBQ area will be under here. Not sure if you can tell from the pictures but the concrete is pretty rough. Our PB suggested poring new concrete to bring it to the new level of the door and with the pool and stamping it all to look cohesive. Problem with that is it costs 14k and we would like to put that money into other things.Anyone have any suggestions as to how we can make it blend in and look nice with the new stamped concrete?