My husband and I are in the final stages of renovating/restoring and house built in 1912 arts & crafts style. The last major project is a living room fireplace reface. We thought the original fireplace was flush to the wall, and had our new facing and mantle planned accordingly. Much to our surprise, under three previous re-facings we discovered that the original fireplace was actually inset (yes someone previously painted the bricks mint green!!). This discovery completely blows away our mantle and facing design. There is something compelling about the recessed design but because every arts & crafts era fireplace seems to be outset from the wall, we are afraid if we keep to the original profile it will look like a big design mistake. It's also a lot more work to redesign it. Should we keep it as it was originally or fill it back in? Ideas for how to reface it as the recessed version? Two constraints - this is a structural wall and we can't build bookshelves or any other built ins around it due to things in the walls that can't be moved. Also we already have the materials we have to work with - vertical grain fir and antique bricks (which will be painted white). And we want a built-in mirror above the mantle to bring reflect light from windows across the room.