I watched an HGTV episode recently where they placed several layers of compound right over the brick; sanding and smoothing in between coats until they achieved the desired surface. They then built a surround with mulitple layers of MDF and built up a molding. Inside the surround they laid out a light colored stone... something like a flagstone. On either side they built white open shelving to house home theater equipment. Sounds a little like what you want. Now... I'm a HUGE fan of glass tile but once you do it... you're kind of married to it due to expense. The beauty of this "spackle" treatment... is you can change out the color, making it an accent wall or blend it in with the existing cabinetry giving it a real built in look. The episode was pretty cool because the chiseled out the stone to create a thick deep enough groove into which they laid tubing through which they ran the all the wires for the home theater equipment. So many ideas out there.....

Whatever you use around the sides and top of the fireplace, you can use on the riser. I took out the raised hearth for my fireplace and used a tile surround. I also tiled the area in front of the fireplace with the same tile as the surround. I believe that you need at least 16" of non-combustible material in front of the firebox. Here is a link that might be useful: some examples of fireplaces with risers

Think about furniture placement. You may not want to put the fireplace centered in the middle of the wall, as it appears your furniture won't be able to be centered in front of it. That bump with the 4' opening is for a door, I assume? Where does the door lead? You will need to leave that whole area along the stairs/living room wall open for a walkway (leaving 42-48" open along the wall would be ideal, IMO) to walk through the living room to the door. If you center the fireplace on the wall, the furniture facing it will need to be off center to account for the walkway. The window and door bump outs are going to be awkward to furnish/decorate around, I'm afraid. It looks like the fireplace wall is just under 17', but after accounting for leaving open space for the walkway, that gives you just under 13' wide of space to work with for arranging furniture in the 10' area (the length of wall with the 3 windows) in front of the fireplace. Or are you planning to put your couch/es in the area where the room widens (the second trio of bump out windows)? If so, how are you going to use the ~13x10' area in front of the fireplace?

First off my backyard is in a slant down my belief is so that rain falls to back alley drive way concrete easily . so I had just put down pallets and some plywood temporary. But now I would like to diy deck .Front end deck i would like a level and back side to gate at a bit off ground deck. But would need some design help . I have my backyard gate right near where I want to build the deck so would want to at least leave room so I could open door and take out trash easily.