Paint and decluttering does wonders. Paint all the trim and cutouts, if you don't have the budget to change. I would leave the brick until last.

It is paint. We hate the dark brick. In person it is much more red tinted too. What about wall shelving around the fireplace? Do you think that is a possibility? Or even doing a wood glue and glueing that really light flooring board to the fireplace like shipping board kind of? What about the furniture? Also colors? Again thank you all so much for taking the time to even help I really appreciate it. I truly have no idea what goes with what.

You can put tile on top of the fireplace if that's what you are asking, but it will have to be cut around the trim and there is quite a lot of brick to cover. I think covering the whole bit with stick on tile or flooring is going to look clumsy. I would white wash the the brick, paint the trim and walls, everything if you don't like it that much. White wash, then paint it if you don't like your wash job.

Personally I would get a professional to help transform the fireplace. Take out all the ornamental brick on the right side and drywall.

HI -- Part of fixing up and making this room fresh may involve some of the furniture . Just how much are you willing to do and what style are you comfortable with .

If this was mine .. this what I would do to remodel ....

I would remove that side wall and the corner feature or possibly remove all that brick and have some dry stacked ledge stone full height in the light color for just the fireplace area .No mantel or if you prefer a wood beam mantel width of fireplace new fresh drywall walls for the rest of that area .

A new fire screen in black and less or no small decor items .

upgrade the lighting .

then a nice long console cabinet right side of the fireplace with the TV mounted on the wall on a swivel bracket . and nothing on the left side of fireplace .

keep the ceiling beams dark as they are , and paint the whole room a soft white or a light grey .. ceiling and walls the same .

A room size less 18 inches around area rug that is a natural neutral color such as a sisal look .maybe with a border edge .

or a rug that has some color with a neutral background with some splashes of red or blue or green

Or a patchwork cowhide .

or Flor.com carpet tiles .

Paint -- Alabaster by Sherwin Williams 7008

The purple wall shown here is opposite the other purple tv wall shown in the other picture

The red brick might be fine once everything else is painted. But.....before doing anything, turn off the overhead lighting. It makes everything look bad. You need floor lamps or table lamps.

As was mentioned, paint all of the wood trim a creamy white. Paint the walls a shade or two darker than the trim color that you choose. Remove everything from the mantel and the walls. Once those things are done come back here with a new post and folks will help you with art/accessories.

I am looking up all these terms and think the ideas are really nice so far! I don't know that taking the wall out is an option right now, I definitely want to in the future though, I wonder if I can take outt the corner peice of mantel wood to start?

We painted this part a cream white/beige-ish color, it is the same wood as the rest of the dark wood beams. I didn't think it turned out looking very good. But again I have almost no Eye for

It just seems to look sloppy in a way, but maybe we used the wrong finish of paint or something.