Thank you for the feedback! The only problem that I have with painting everything white is that this room is open to the stairs and is open to the upstairs hall, and has a vaulted ceiling with beams, everything floors, moulding, and doors are all that same stained wood color. I'm making it work for now, but it will all be white in the future! :) Danielle

To me the fireplace should be the feature. No matter what you do to it, the shelves dwarf the fireplace. Whatever you put there will not look right. I would remove the shelves for now, keep the bases as is until you are able to do the whole job.

Hi there! you are lucky to have decent bookshelves to "play" with - don't tear them out!! I agree with the above comment to paint white! I dont even think you need to add extra mouldings these will look nice and contemporary with white paint and new hardware, you could do extra long bar type pulls using the existing drill hole on top and drilling another hole near the bottom of doors. When bulking up the mantle make sure you add the bulk to the bottom of the existing mantle so its covering the brick so the mantle doesnt end up even higher than it is now. If you are worried about tying in with the existing woodwork simply keep the mantle in the stained wood colour but paint the shelves and brick white. Also great idea to add baskets on top...keep these in same tone as your wood work and it will further give you another element that ties into all the other woodwork in the room. Althouth the stencil is a fun idea it may be wasted time as it may get lost when you dress the shelves! I prefer a solid accent paint for the backs and then staging the shelves in a way that really pops! If you like I can send you some visuals of similar shelves in white that I've done and with the right accessories even basic shelves like this can look amazing!!! Good luck!

I think your idea of floating shelves would work well -- see my very, very poor photoshop-type attempt at same:

@mjlb.
Thank you for taking the time to create a photo. It is nice to see the bookshelves taken off! I think we are going to try taking one bookshelf off, they are not directly attached to the bottom, and see what it looks like before taking the other one down! We are definitely going to make a larger mantel and paint the brick and cabinets! Now to pick the right colors! Thanks again! Danielle

Thanks to everyone for your comments! All great ideas, I now have to form a plan! It is taking shape and I will post pictures later when the project is complete! :)