What about smoothing something over the whole thing so that you have a white adobe style finish--all smooth and glossy white. The rounded hearth would lend itself to that. You could add glass tiles around the opening itself and maybe a few accent tiles on the wall above. If you wanted to extend the roundedness of adobestyle up the wall you could but even without it I think it would be contemp. To mahlgold--I think your brick wall looks wonderful! But, then maybe the color isn't something that you like? Could you do drystack stone over the whole wall with tiles on the seat? Or would that not be contemp enough.

Don't go, any of you! I'm a lurker who is late to this party (and clueless about anything else) but I just wanted to chime in because I have a similar look & fabric in my dining room. Wish I had your awesome sense of humor and writing skills! I found chair cushions in what seems to be the same elephant fabric at a Pier 1 that was going out of business. They only had 4, but since I hope to replace the chairs (and the table for that matter) I scooped them up anyway. I've tried to work the teal blue via some curtains, but I'm not thrilled with it my room. I think maybe I need to switch them out to something purplish blue?? OTOH I am very tempted to pick up 2 of these teal dining chairs in the link while they're on sale.... What do you think, as the queen of the elephant/whorehouse style? Here is a link that might be useful: Teal dining chair

"Rosie" was the heroine for me and my co-worker too. *Spoiler alert* I read the book first and told my co-worker she would enjoy it. As she read it we couldn't wait to talk to each other about it but were both afraid I might accidentally announce some "spoilers". Finally she came in one day and I knew she had finally finished the book when she said "Good old Rosie!" I love elephants and collect figurines; I don't think I could watch the movie because of the mistreatment scenes that I recall from the book. I have a hard time with any mistreatment scenes of animals and people generally - if I don't know too much about it ahead of time, I seem to handle it OK but if I know that a story contains those types of things and have some detailed forewarning, I cannot bring myself to read it.

I just finished this book and I guess I'm in the minority because I loved it. And yes, Rosie was my favorite character too. I remember vividly two times when I have been able to actually touch elephants (or rather, they touched me). Once was at the Honolulu Zoo, where they are brought out into the open and visitors can feed them carrots. The other time was at the National Zoo in Washington D.C., during a horrendous blizzard when I was probably the only visitor at the entire zoo, and the all-female elephant keepers welcomed me into their midst. They let me into the enclosure and gave me some oranges to feed the elephants. I probably liked the book so much because my job involves caring for many elderly folks. I work in a medical rehab hospital, and I am often struck by the will to live and drive to recover from serious illness, even by those in their 90's. My younger co-workers are often puzzled by this; they seem to think that at a certain age, one just rolls over and dies. At their tender ages, they can't conceive of being so advanced in years and still finding life precious. I enjoyed the stories of working in a circus during the depression even though the brutality was difficult. I did find it quite realistic. All-in-all, a satisfying book, and one that I probably would not have read if not for RP.