Question re mahogany: you might want to make sure that the mahogany you use is sustainably sourced...it's gorgeous but it's a major rainforest wood and is being poached, as it were, destroying habitat left and right. You can look for something that is called "FSC certified" if you're in question about the source of the wood. OR you can look on a craigslist for someone selling downed lumber that's been milled locally. I love using that kind of wood. Make sure it's dried sufficiently as well. This might get into the range of *you* having to do the sourcing; there are plenty of aspects of our remodel where we know that a contractor would have stopped *long* before we would have been happy...the truly custom sometimes involves extra *extra* legwork on the owner's part. I look so forward to re-doing our mantel--it will be locally milled walnut, I hope. Have you checked craigslist? You can even start looking in "services" for arborists who might know people who have recently cut down a walnut tree. Then it would have local resonance too, rather than being just another product.

Juju, I'm glad you came to a good conclusion. Have they signed off on the repairs you have agreed to yet? If not, wait till they do before you do anything. When is closing? Personally, I think you got off easy, in that your buyers are being cheap and not hiring someone, who knows supposedly what they are doing, to nit-pick through the house. I just had buyers from hades that had a "professional" inspection, and came back with a list of 43 things they wanted repaired. It was mostly stuff like run a new bead of caulk between the bathroom floor trim and the floor, and stuff like that. But they went so far as to want all of the light bulbs and batteries changed out. Funny thing is that this so-called professional missed several bigger things that I was expecting him to list. The morning of closing, my Realtor called from the house at 7AM, and said that the buyers wanted me to dig up the hedges and gutter drainage at the front of the house and redo it. Um...NO! One thing that helped in me not having to do all of these silly repairs they had listed is something that my broker pulled out of the NAR sales contract. Inspection report repairs are only necessary if they are "in need of immediate repair". If something still has serviceable life, and is up to code, you are not required to fix it, per the contract. Having said that, it all depends on how much you want that house sold. Mine was an investment property, and I was ready to move on to the next one. So I did a lot of this little stuff they wanted done. Good luck on the closing.

Well, first of all, you can have the stone cleaned. You could also modernize the fireplace quite a bit by simply replacing the mantle top slab with wood. You could also have the mortar recolored to look fresh if you want. You could also reface the entire fireplace for not that much. Replace the hearth slab with granite, screw cement board over all the stone, and face it with tile + that wood mantle top. Bam. Super modern. You could also face it over with a wood facade. Painting stone though? Do people do it? Yes. Have I ever thought it looked good? No. It looks like a band aid to me, every time. I never recommend it. There are other options.

I think the fireplace is very well done. The main problem is the incremental addition of all the clutter that has occurred. If that were my home, I'd remove every single thing on the hearth, the two lamps, and -- though you probably don't want to hear it -- that television. The tv is a distracting focal point and it's very high placement is terrible from an ergonomic standpoint. Yes, people put tv sets above the mantel all the time, but that doesn't make it a good idea either from a practical or a design standpoint. The placement of a tv for viewing comfort should be approximately at a height where the midpoint of the screen is at eye level or a little higher when you are seated; yours is probably 5' higher than it should be. The only thing I would do to that fireplace is paint the mantel -- maybe a semi-gloss black -- and then consider putting one, nice vase on it.