Your stove is rated to heat up to 1,200 sq ft. But one of the drawbacks is it's not that efficient. "Burn times" can be a lot of hooey. My Regency stove claims to have an 8 hour burn time. So I called my stove shop and asked just what is "burn time"? He calmly said you cannot expect to come back to the stove 8 hours later and still see flames. And that's what people think. No, you can come back to the stove after 8 hours and still see glowing embers. You can reload the stove and get the fire going again without fire starters, newspaper, etc. But in order to get the 8 hour burn, you must pack the stove! Not just a few logs and you're done. You fill the stove with wood, get it going, and then shut off the air. In the EPA stoves the air is never completely shut off and the secondary burn does it's thing. In the non EPA stoves, once you shut off the air, and oxygen, and smoke goes up the chimney. That's why they're called "smoke dragons". Now, you're only getting a 2 hour burn time? Is that when you're there and want to have a nice fire to look at? In that case your burn times will naturally be shorter. When we're home during the day and have the stove going, yeah, a 2 to 3 hour time is normal. Because we don't completely shut down the air supply. And I must admit that sometimes during the evening, that fire is a lot more entertaining than what's on TV! Naturally, your wood selection has a lot to do with burn times. Here in Vermont I burn only seasoned maple, oak, and beech. My "soft wood" is birch. No pine at all.

There have been a few threads on this topic over the years. Here are two, including one of our own brick to tile make overs. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2813796/how-can-i-update-this-60s-facade?n=9 http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3876215/to-paint-or-not-and-removing-an-insert?n=7

I really need to make a decision about this soon as we're about to pull up the old carpeting in the room with the fireplace would like to whitewash it first if it won't mess up the ability to tile right over later, so really hoping someone will know/have tried. - Thanks!

Pink would not be my choice but the FP looks fine to me if the pink works for you. I think the FP is nice but I like MCM FPs which really is what you have and I would just ang a large piece of art on the entry side and maybe a bench underneath . If tiling is your choice do not use those small tiles go 12 x24 for sure and realize you will no longer have the indent in the LR one so more art there too and maybe there a nice thick natural wood mantel that spans the whole width