Michelle,- where is your fireplace ideabook? Lots of ideas if you look at fireplaces on houzz.

Part of deciding what you want to do with the fireplace is what are you doing with the rest of the space? Do you have that figured out? Or is the fireplace going to drive the rest of what you do with the room?

try painting that baseboard, that goes around the room, white. change out the hearth to a black slate (one solid piece would be great) for the hearth. freshen up the wood by using a tungoil or danish oil to breathe some life back into it. bring in some other decor elements. what you currently have is too small and just isn't working. try finding a mcm wood style or maybe a rich colored velvet chair for that corner.

The slate tile is a great idea! As seen in this photo, the tile in the foyer is slate and so maybe I could find a similar style for the hearth. We are striving for a MCM/danish style in the rest of the house. The baseboard against the paneling bothers me but I’m reluctant to paint them all white because they look great in the rest of the house against the oak floor.

This fireplace looks amazing!! Very original, I love it.
Personally I would paint the wood ceiling in white because for me there is a bit to much wood in this room and this ceiling just makes the room smaller.
For the fireplaces I would add few light shelves around such as you can see on this picture and put a reading sofa as suggested by other houzz members. Personally I like the Emmanuelle wood chair with a big exotic green plant ! Good luck!

Groveraxle, that’s a fantastic idea! I think pulling the slate all the way across would help a lot. I love monstera but don’t know if I have the light for one right now, maybe after I install a skylight :-)

Thanks for all the feedback everyone!