What are your plans for the wall and floors? General style of the home? Are you thinking small update or major redo?

If just a update...I bet it looks better already by removing the brass. The mantle looks like it crowds the top of the arch, any chance you can remove the side supports and replace with a reclaimed wood mantle perhaps a bit higher up?

We definitely want to redo the flooring all together....we thought either stained concrete or wood flooring. The walls we thought to replace paneling with drywall. I am stuck at the brick.....I thought maybe a whitewash since there are two different types of brick. The red brick has like a glaze or topcoat of some kind.

My home is a 1960s ranch style, very low pitch roof. This living area is actually an add on, the red brick is actually the exterior wall. The ceiling in this room is very short starting at 8ft the highest and ending a little over 6ft. The room is rectangular that helps to get a better idea of the layout. The pic is from when we just moved in, we just didnt have the extra money to work on it then. So I cant really take a recent pic, especially if the whole room.

I think if you whitewashed the brick you would end up with very different looks anyway since the finish and coloring of the bricks is different. I think I’d frame over the red brick and dry wall it when you do the paneling.

@Kris you make a really good point....I hadnt thought of that part. Maybe that will have to be the route we go, because I hate that it looks all mishmashed together. If I did just that of the painting it would just be a lighter mishmash.

If you are having them frame the red brick you could also frame over part of the fireplace wall...reduce its footprint and the visual impact of the brick not meeting the ceiling.