Did you price the chair through one of the North Carolina stores? I did so just in the last two weeks- ordered from Basista, which is in Cleveland Ohio, as two fellow poster's had a good experience with them. I saved about $600 on a sofa. I don't think they carry Flexsteel though. If you can find a chair you like in another store, I would price it with these stores. I felt sort of guilty- I was in the store where I usually buy my furniture- looking their samples, sitting on their sofa. Then I ordered from the NC store. Well- not too guilty- if their prices were as good, I would have ordered from them, as you know the NC stores are making a profit also- my 'old' store is just a bit too greedy.

I have one over a fireplace, and I love it. the rest of that wall is windows, so it was the only spot. My fireplace is gas, and there are clear guidlines about the clearence from combustibles and the like. There are heat concerns. It's commonly stated that you can't have the TV on when the temp there is 95 degrees. Easy for me to monitor, I just keep the fireplace remote there, sometimes programed to turn off the fire when the area hits that. If the fireplace is woodburning, controling the heat could be a problem and you might simply have to turn the tv off sometimes. I suspect that the 95 is a purely random number, though. Lots of homes get that hot, and we haven't heard many reports in the media about flat screens failing from it. To me, watching the fire or watching the tv are different activities that I rarely want to do at the same time. I love having the fire on for conversation, reading, playing a game, and those are times I'd rather have the TV off anyway. We do burn the fire to take the chill off the room on movie nights, but at a pretty low level. As to veiwing angle: it's about 5 ft above the floor, and the seating is about 12 feet back. It seems a little odd if you are used to a conventional set just inches off the floor, but you quickly adapt. It isn't at all uncomfortable for me or any of my family [so far as anyone has ever mentioned], and the kids and dogs don't block the screen everytime they walk by. Overall, I think its a good solution for many rooms. Just be sure to plan for power and signal up there: you don't want a lot of visible wires.

I would consider an "L" arrangement of the room so that you could either face the TV or the fireplace. If not, a corner fireplace is another option, which is what I have in my family room. But in that case, your current fireplace will probably not work unless you make a triangle shaped top for it. But they aren't that expensive so I would just sell that one, in that case, and buy a corner electric fireplace. I know they make them because I have shopped for one recently for a bedroom space. Another option is to put shelving units on either side of the fireplace and put the TV on one side. I have that arrangement in one of my guest bedrooms, albeit the shelving units are on either side of a dresser, but it still works. This won't work too well if the TV is huge.

This is our first remodel project and we've certainly learned some lessons. We interviewed 4 companies - 2 design build firms and 2 architects. DH's uncle is an architect in another state and he was our sounding board as we went through the process, and gave suggestions on floor plan. Ideally, we would've had him do our house, but we couldn't afford it. We liked one architect's design portfolio, but decided we didn't have the money to do what they could've designed to really take advantage of their creativity. One of the design build's firm work was more in line with what we knew we could pull off. The floor plan they came up with is a good use of our space. If we had unlimited money, we would've gone a different option. Be prepared to consider options. We were dead set against touching the 2 bedrooms as we needed the space to live in, but the weird walk-in closet in one bedroom was the perfect location for the master bathroom. There were 2 closets in this room and it was minor change - building a 5' wall to close it off from the bedroom and creating a doorway in the other wall for access to the master. This one change made the entire layout work. We did consider minor changes, but they didn't fix underlying problems with layout. That's why people are suggesting you consider relocating kitchen or opening up some walls. Yes it is more to do that, but it costs so much to do anything in the first place and it may be worth it. You won't know until you check.