I would love to get a better picture of where this is in the room- the stones look great - but the fireplace looks massive in the room and a bit awkward - is it? or is it just the photo?

I don't think painting white will make this look dirty - there are lots of great pics online with stone fireplaces and white walls.

I would choose a white that will bring out the grey tones, hard to tell here - but probably something on the cool side.

I’ve searched online bit I haven’t seen any as massive as this. In the image it’s hard to see but the stones are much more of a brown and yellow color.

This stone looks like a DIY project from years past.

Why not remove the stone and cover it with a material more in keeping with your style?

Can you provide an applicable How-to link? I’ve only found partial stone mantel removal and facade covers.

Like the triangle shape of the fireplace but not a fan of the stone. Looks interesting but I'd certainly not want to dust it.

You might consider picking a way to make at least the back two sides smooth (maybe fill them in and stucco or cover them with paneling that wraps around the front corners.

That fireplace is ourageous, for sure, especially with the kind of low ceilings. What were they thinking? This is one case where the fireplace should not be the focal point of the room.

However, since you're dealing with a new home and a million things to do, just deal with the room paint for now. You do have lovely floors. When your furniture is in place, bring home a sample of Accessible Beige or some other pale color you pull from the stone--very palest shade on the color deck--to see if it harmonizes with the fireplace, the floors, and your furniture.

Visual trick:

--Show us photos of the other three walls of the space taken from corners of the room. Plan on an attractive wall across from the fireplace, i.e. float your sofa in front of the fireplace so that it faces a wall system for TV and art. That way the fireplace becomes more of a divider of the space behind all your furniture. What are the measurements? How do you plan to use the room?

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At some point when budget allows, you'll want to sheet rock that over, making sure you can safely do so. And I'm usually the Houzz crank saying to work with what you have. But I'm making an exception for that fireplace.

If you like the fireplace as is, keep it.

The fireplace is dominant. Would not invest heavily a lot in other decorating first if you anticipate changing the fireplace any time soon. With the stone gray, choosing a color to paint the walls, however, shouldn't matter.

Not a pro. If this is a wood burning fireplace, I'm guessing -- emphasis on guessing -- that, given the unusual triangle shape of it, if all this stone could be removed and you might well find metal/pipe visible beneath it rather than a brick or block chimney faced with stone.

If you want a fireplace but want change and would like to know what's beneath the stone -- such as to determine whether or not you could "take it back to brick" ( if brick is there ) -- check the attic ... or you might have a foot or so of stone removed from the top and take a look.

I kinda like it! It’s ”hobbitey“ and on trend with the current “nest in your own burrow” trend. Cozy it up with a jewel box approach of darker colors, wood, rich fabrics, and leather. “Ralph Lauren Meets The Shire”

Tear it down and take advantage of the remaining flue and chimney to install a cozy wood burner there.

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Hahaha! We bought a house with a black lava fireplace wall on a raised hearth......whoohee....we sheet rocked over it , built a mantle surround and tiled the hearth and the firebox.

I definitely have to keep it for the time being. @housegal200 thank you, I recently pulled up the wall to wall green carpet and install the bamboo floor throughout. the fireplace had 30 years of grime and spiderwebs that I scrubbed to no avai. The future ideas are worth considering as I image this will be quite the project to remove the rocks. I’ll provide dimensions in a bit.

The look I’d like to achieve is an open Scandinavian design and this sucken room would be more on the cozy side as a reading room.

@soosun2 can you add a pictur?

IF you decide to add anything to the stone to keep the stone but make the stone walls smoother as a DIY project, do pay attention to the product you buy. There are cement mixes with adhesive in them that will adhere to a pre-existing mortar joint/stone but without that kind of adhesive ingredient, you could be creating a future nightmare as plain concrete or cement begins to crumble.

Before lighting a fire in that fireplace, I'd check to see if it has ever been inspected and see what, if anything, there is on record as to who built it and how. Be aware that you may be "opening a can of worms" if you do that.

Before trying to fill in all that space with more grout or the like, I might try painting the grout the same color as the stone. There are special colorants to use, hopefully some that can be done on big patches of grout instead of what's usually used on the thin lines between tiles. That will be time consuming enough, but a lot less work than filling it all and maybe just as satisfactory until you can tear it down.

If you haven't gotten bids on tearing off the rock and options for replacing it with something affordable, I'd encourage you to do so. It may be more affordable than you imagine and would make you VERY happy.

IMO that stone needs to go it is not the right choice for that FP . BTW does that FP even function / Is it gas? I think this could be a DIY job to remove the rocks and use something different to finish it . I have a monster FP in my house but it is actually part of the support structure and we left it and now I love it but I don’t think I would learn to love that one plus the fact that it is a corner FP which IMO are the worst to work with.

Very much like your flooring. Vast improvement over any green carpet ... in my opinion (not a pro).

If you're not going to actually use the fireplace right now (and if you consider it an eyesore), you might consider just wrapping the entire thing, including the front firebox, in paneling with screws and boards you add art and/or shelving to and just ignore the fireplace for now as long as you know it doesn't leak rainwater into your home and that isn't a fire hazard (gas /electric, if applicable, disconnected properly) and as long as you've blocked the top of the chimney (so critters cannot get in and die and stink up the place). You could then keep it your hidden project for "later".

When you do decide to tackle it, please do post updates -- I'm now really curious as to what you decide to do.

One afterthought, you might go ahead and buy enough matching flooring to re-floor that part of the room in case you do wake up some morning and decide to take a sledge hammer to the stones.

@suezbell Thanks for the note!! there is brick in the attic. there is hope!!!

the fireplace is wood burning and I’m still investigating how the previous owners went from square to triangle shape.

Hope finding the brick above gives you a little peace of mind.

Years ago, (dating myself) we had an oval shaped cast iron wood burning heater downstairs and a metal shelf hung between rafters in the ceiling to hold brick above the ceiling and thru the roof. The triple walled pipe attached to the back of the heater took the smoke from the heater to the brick. Covering that heater and pipe with the least possible brick or stone -- least possible expense -- would likely have resulted in a triangle shaped chimney. That is why I suspected you may find a wood burning stove or fireplace insert and some triple walled metal pipe beneath the stone -- but you may not be able to know for sure unless/until the stone is removed.

Even if you eventually discover you don't like the look of the brick behind the stone downstairs much or any better than the current uneven stone, it would be easier to clad "straight/smooth" brick with something you do like than to try to alter the current stone. Also, without the stone adding to the size of the fireplace, it is likely there would be less of the floor to redo to match your new flooring.

Looking forward to the "after" pics when you make your home/fireplace what you want it to be.

Do you need both of the hall/walkways around it? Looks like that's what's giving it it's triangle shape. I'd choose one walkway and close off the other with a wall and then sheetrock the hall (two) sides of the rock and the walled off side could be made into a closet.

If you keep the fireplace, I'd keep it open all around it -- unless you actually need to build a closet behind it for storage. An open nook not needed as a hallway/walk space could be a great spot to set a piece of exercise equipment or a table with a half completed project out of the way or a rolling table or cabinet you might need handy to put where it is needed when it is needed or a pet bed or, with enough light, a semi private place for a small desk/table and/or file cabinet for bill paying related stuff. Wouldn't make definite plans for anything until you know how much space you'll eventually have.

@housegal200

why can't you remove the rock and redo it with something else? yes it's work, but it's not that difficult. plenty of how-to's online. Some one did a DIY on that years ago. When you bought the house, was that inspected? If it's safe, then just redo it. not that much of a huge deal. you could even demo it yourself and save a thousand just on that.

if you have no DIY skill, then save up for someone to do it.

In the meantime, paint out that gray mortar to white. it will help lighten the look. other than that, there's nothing else.

Our fireplace had really deeply indented dark mortared spaces between the dirty grey stones so we fiddled with the process (pictured in Beverly’s fireplace photos above which we used as an inspiration/model too) and came up with using an off white grout instead of mortar which was too grey. My contractor then used a rag and brush to lighten the stone color with some of the watered down grout. We could not use mortar because it would not stay in the crevices). Below is the before and after. The process might work for you but it took us some time to come up with the right materials to get the color to go with the wall paint which was White Dove.. Good luck.

@J Inhof Wow, beautiful dramatic before and after. I appreciate process detail. I’ll give this a try before I consider demo.

Thx, Sh, I am happy to share products we used but I’ll have to ask my contractor for the details.