Thanks, Would you mind sharing a picture, if you have one?

It's not a great pic....it's before I had it cleaned up.

It's hard to see in that pic, but there is some detail to the brick at the top...there are something like 4 or 5 of those "step" kind of things. You can see it by the stocking.

With walls that reach higher than 9' there are a number of ways to finish a FP. You're way ahead of the game since you have a blank slate. Combine the TV and the FP into one unit to keep things in scale to the rest of the room. An arrangement that locates the hearth and TV side by side functions well since you can take in the view of both together. It's tempting to run stone up the entire wall but too often the stone looks imposing and out of scale. You can build out far enough just to house the FP and maybe a bin for logs. Then a third recess less deep could hold the TV. Below the TV build in a wood box deep enough to hold the components.

Just don't do it like this!

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/what-should-i-do-with-this-faux-fireplace-dsvw-vd~1273312

this is a project we just recently completed. it might help

Thank you for all your ideas! J
MKA, that looks beautiful! I love the mantle piece. I was trying to find a picture of something just like that.