You need a good mason experienced with fireplaces. There was a lot of work done on it thirty or forty years ago that may or may not have been done right. The same is true of the house.

Yeah it will be mainly for decoration but do plan to burn some firewood in. The flue needs a good cleaning. I plan on doing hardwood oaks on the floor.

Would refacing the entire fireplace to the ceiling with a veneer stone be a bad idea?

"Any idea what the condition of the flue is?"

Good question. Perhaps a good mason experienced with fireplaces would know.

You have a "heatilator" type FP. It is a prefabbed heavy sheet metal unit welded together with an integral damper and heat vents that circulate room air across the hot metal. They work by a convection current, cool air pulled in the bottom vents and hot air discharged at the top. If the metal is still sound, all you need worry about is redoing the brick veneer. If the sheet metal is burned through, it probably is beyond saving.
If you want it to give off a good amount of warmth, don't cover up the grilles. You can put glass doors on it to have some better degree of control over the draft. People used to fit blowers to the ducting to make it put out the maximum amount of heat.
Casey

Hi, Any added depth on the surround will affect the draft, so keep the material thickness as small as possible. For instance, tile would be fine, another layer of brick perhaps less than fine. You can experiment by dry-staking bricks and testing the FP to see that it still draws as well.
Casey