After reading this I was intrigued; and basically people are saying to drywall over the existing stone.. just double check with safety codes for your area (making sure nothing combustible is within 9-12" of the fireplace, including furring strips and drywall). If you then plan on purchasing meshed stacked stone the installation should be considerably easy. Hope that helps some.

Ok, yes, I must confess to overthinking. I hope I didn't annoy anyone with an overly dramatic call for help. Perhaps I should have titled my post, "help with builder-grade fireplace":) Thank you all for reminding me of that. grandmaof3: thanks; colorful artwork really would help! I like the idea of unframed, colorful artwork and keeping it simple. It's only naked now due to painting, but I had a large multi-candle sconce on the wall, a tall candlestick on the left, and a plate on a stand that we got in Italy. It was just ok. grlpwrs: yes, the mantle/fireplace trim is all "cream fleece", which I thought worked well with our previous wall color (Yorkshire Tan), but now looks strange to my eye. Maybe just a result of the change that I have not yet adjusted to. olychick: Thanks for the photo ideas! I will use them as a reference while I shop around.... This post was edited by rovo on Wed, Jan 30, 13 at 14:46

adnovak, you may want to start your own thread about your fireplace because lots of folks won't look at a 4 year old thread that's been revived. To upload pics, put them on your device, somewhere easy to find, click on the Photo Icon at the bottom of your post, select the place where your pic is, click on it to select and open it, then when it appears in your post, be sure to hit submit and we'll be able to see it, too. For vent covers, I would look to see if your fireplace innards has a brand name stamped someplace...I know Heatilator was a big name for fireplaces with vents in the 1970s. If you can find a name, you might be able to find what you want from the company or on ebay. Heatilator website

Wow, that's some design error right there. I wonder if you could chip off some spots and see what is underneath? It might not be too pretty underneath which might be a reason they coated it like that. You might look into Romabio lime wash products which come in different colors, but I'm not sure even that will solve the problem here. You could try using a chemical stripper to get the finish off, or you might consider recovering the fireplace with another material.