Nice Liza. Will you be painting or are you going with the white walls?

Thanks Karen! Charmean we're going to keep the walls - it's a great room (living/dining kitchen) and from the photo angle you can't see the built-in bookshelves and TV on the left and everything else in the room that keeps it from being boring. The fireplace is a nice focal point and break for the eyes. I need to take some more pix. . .

It's very elegant that way...high contrast. I like it! Will watch for more pics, thanks for sharing.

Love it. Looks like a mountain range poking through the clouds. A second look reveals a sea of sand dunes. I've never seen a fireplace treated like this. Very nice.

Liza, your photo reminds me of this living room below.

Thanks Rob, I never put it into words like that but it gives me a similar organic feeling.

Dytecture - you are spot on! I'll upload another photo but I have a similar rug and color scheme. Here's another photo (unfortunately not staged nicely) - I think maybe you are a design psychic?

Where did you get these tiles? Absolutely stunning.

All natural stone in the Bay Area http://www.allnaturalstoneinc.com/ they actually had a fireplace tiled with it in the showroom and as soon as I saw it I was done. They also come in a half-scale version and two other colors (mine are green/gray)

I love it!!

Very modern looking, but it's quite beautiful! :) I love the way it catches your attention right when you look at the picture.

It is terrific. I really like the movement. I also like the picture on the mantle. Where did you get that?

Very cool a true conversation piece- I love it!

Yes textured tiles are so in! We are using striated tiles to do a full tile surround in all of our model homes, and when we lay the tiles we alternate the direction of the pattern. It creates a very sophisticated "pop" that bathrooms so often lack!

I love it and the entire room! I've been looking for ideas for a backsplash behind our stove. This is giving me a different direction to think about.

I also love the movement of the sculpture next to the tile. Very, very nice pick individually and collectively. You are having such fun...I can tell! :)

Thanks everyone, the picture on the mantel is by an artist named Marlene Capell http://w3art.com/MarleneCapell.html