will the fireplace wall be even with the front of the built ins?

No, it will be bumped out. I will attach a picture in a second

edit! Success!

I think they look like standard bookshelves that surround most fireplaces...nothing wrong with that!

Thank you. I am worried because they are two 24 inch wide shelves together to create 48 inches wide. And then 10 ft tall! I've never seen 10ft tall shelves. :). But with my ceilings being 12ft tall. I think this is proportional

It will look fine. Will you be doing anything interesting with the back of the bookshelves? Painting them a contrasting color? Wallpaper?

I haven't decided. The example picture is actually my stuff :) .

If you are concerned then free SketchUp is your friend.

This is ours - similar to what you are contemplating perhaps

Night owl, thank you for posting the picture. Gorgeous! How wide are your shelves?

Ninjaneer,. This looks stunning. Thanks oh so much!!

The photos are fine, but unless your sketch isn't to scale, it looks like there's not much width left between the built-ins for your fireplace/TV.

There wasn't. My builder changed that. This is the only sketch I have from cabinet person.

Long time lurker...Here are the before/after phots of our built-ins for our current build (still waiting for the veneer to go up). We have a wood burning fireplace so our issue was that we didn't want the built-ins to overwhelm the fireplace. Very happy with the way they turned out. We added beadboard for the backing.

Kristin this is just beautiful!

the cabinet fireplace wall to outside wall is about 72 inches each side. The doors are each 16 inches wide. I like the cabinets, but not the FP look. Someday, will change to look more like Ninjan's or Kristin's (above).