I would look at a wood burning fireplace insert that, from looking at your pictures, should easily fit into your fireplace. Just so you know, fireplaces are not very efficient, because most of the heat ends up going up the chimney. You could also look at some wood stoves, but from your pictures, it appears that you would have to enlarge your hearth. Whatever you do, be sure to pay attention to the manufacturers clearances. Are you looking to use the fireplace as your primary heat, secondary heat, or just for asthetics? Also, you should be able to get some brick cleaner from a stove or fireplace shop that would make your fireplace surround and hearth look like new. The paint can probably be scraped off.

It appears that your mantel is made of wood. This can easily be replaced with a nice piece of blue stone or a brick/masonary product. This will also make using the fireplace in its present or future state, much safer, since the blue stone and brick is not combustable.

Aesthetics. It's unlikely that we would ever actually use it. I really just want to get rid of the brick altogether, to be honest.

I just finished ripping the brick facia off our fireplace. There were easily twice as many bricks as shown in your picture and we also had a raised hearth that was filled with cinder blocks and tons of mortar. It was a messy, dirty job that I did with a 2.5 lb sledge, chisel and crow bar. I probably spent a good 10 hrs on it over the course of two days. Renting some kind of power jack hammer would have been faster, but I didn't want to destroy the bricks so we could reuse them in the garden.

Like you, we were just tired of the look and will be changing to something entirely different, probably something like granite or marble for the facia and hearth, then adding a gas insert and a new mantel.

Your fireplace is a very simple design. I'd probably just tile over it if you want to change the look.

For a quick fix, I would paint it & then get a nice iron firescreen. Then you can really think about what material would work with your decor - marble, slate, tiles...

I agree with the painting suggestion. White brick is a more modern look and will blend with the greenish walls and brighten everything up. You can always tear out when you have lived there and found the 'look' you want.

gobows

We had our bricks painted off white and the mantle a creamy coffee. It looked good. I do believe we used a gloss or semi-gloss to help with the ash/soot cleaning,

We had a white painted fireplace that my wife faux painted. Just an Idea for painting it. Not very costly . And she also painted our neighbors as well. Here is a thread I had posted the pics to earlier.

Here is a link that might be useful: fireplace painting thread

I believe we're going to go ahead and paint it white in the short-term, until we have a better idea of how we want to decorate the room. Is there a special paint that I need to use on brick?

It has to be green.

Just kidding.

Paint the fireplace white and then paint your walls a color. As far as decorating goes, paint is cheap. We used satin wall paint on our but it had already been painted so that probably makes a difference. I'd ask the guys where you buy your paint about primer or whatever they recommend.

Hi, I have the same problem with my fireplace. I painted it and then did the fuex (sp?) painting, only it didn't turn out like I wanted it too!

atmiller398, I like how your wife did your fireplace. Can you explain how she did it or is there anybody else that can help me? PLEASE!! Thank you.

atmiller398,

You mentioned your wife is a faux painter. Any chance you live in the sacramento area? I'd much prefer to hand my fireplace over to someone who has done it before.
Thanks

I am sorry, we live in the San Diego area. Here are some more samples. Hope this helps.
http://photobucket.com/albums/y220/atmiller398/fireplace/

You could just build a new surround and mantle out of wood and cover the whole darn thing. I had a black-hole inset slate surround and that's what I did. Basically, just built 4 boxes large enough to slip over the existing slate and screwed everything together and to the wall. Then I went nuts with talavera tile and molding. But you could keep it simple and still have a nice surround for a very little bit of money and effort. I don't have any before pics, and again I know you wouldn't like anything like this style-wise, but it was pretty easy to do. The original slate is still behind my wood.
{{gwi:1524389}}

Now that you've had a couple of cold months to consider it, did you decide to do anything with your fireplace?

Sometimes just a lick of paint works magic. You'd be surprised how it can change the entire look of the room. Look at these pictures (in the link below) and see what paint has done to this fireplace.

Here is a link that might be useful: Transform An Ugly Fireplace With Paint