In our bungalow, we used PeelAway 1 to strip the paint off the brick. Peelaway, Ace Hardware Concrete Cleaner, lots of water and elbow grease brought the brick back to like new condition. I dug/plucked/cracked the "new (1995) tiles and grout off the hearth to expose the original brick hearth. It was in awful condition so we retiled with Pewabic Pottery tile. Our mantle had never been painted so we left it alone. My vote is to try and restore what's original to your house.

Thanks dilly! That's beautiful and that has certainly giving me another idea. I never thought of using stone. I live in a condo and didn't want to spend top dollar for this but I think that is an excellent idea. Question: how does it look if the stone doesn't bump up against the end of a wall? Like the sides of your stone? I wouldn't be doing it to the top where it reaches the ceiling...so was wondering how it would look if its not flat against the wall? Also, I'm taking up the tile in the sunroom. Putting down laminate flooring. Thanks for the idea!

I'm a little confused. Your drawing says tile but your post says slab. Did you change plans from tile to slab after the drawing? Also, your drawing shows a dimension of 5'2" across the bottom which equals 62", but that appears to cover columns plus surround width of 6" + 44" + 6" which equals 46". Granite fabrication pricing can vary a lot depending on where you are and also from fabricator to fabricator. Are there any edge details or such that cause extra fabrication time? Our fireplace surround is very similar in size. The material for the surround is left over from our kitchen remodel and we bought a small slab for our hearth. Our quote is just labor - $600 for fab and installation. It is very simple - no fancy edges. 8" wide, but that probably doesn't make much difference to the quote. Ours is also taller - 54" - and a bit wider - 52". Our surround is being fabbed as 3 rectangular pieces - a top and 2 sides because of the size of our remnants. A fabricator might charge more to fab and install a similar surround as one piece. There would be more chance of breakage I think and it might take an extra installer to handle the weight of the surround. I think that it would have cost more if we used the fabricator who did our kitchen.

IMO just like any kitchen you want something that can be cleaned easily I like slate for outdoor spaces both for the walls of the kitchen and the counters it stands up well to all kinds of waether cleans easily and looks awesome.Theother material to look at is soapstone. I ahve used 12 x 24 slate tiles too.