Looking for some feedback from others who have taken on a fireplace remodel. The style of our home is fairly traditional, but we are working with a designer (on an hourly basis) to help pull some of our ideas together and give our space some modern, up-to-date touches while keeping changes complimentary to the overall house style. This means we're in charge of our sourcing and securing contractors on our own. When embarking on this journey we knew we wanted to do something with the fireplace and due to the size/shape of the room we want to mount the TV above the fireplace. I know this generally isn't desirable from a design stand point, but this is the road we're on, so I'm not looking for any recommendations or opinions on why we shouldn't go this route. The wheels are already in motion, my friends ;)

Phase 1. Initially we wanted to frame and sheet rock the entire fireplace and hearth and create two recessed areas one for a more modern horizontal wall mounted fireplace and another for the television. After a few estimates we moved away from this idea because we have a vaulted ceiling with a can light directly over where this structure would be. Basically, our simple idea had a domino effect and we realized we were creating more issues to resolve that would make our initial budget sky rocket.

Phase 2. After checking back in with our designer we decided we'd remove the existing mantle, white wash/paint the brick and instead of meeting with sub contractors we should source someone with experience in custom cabinetry and millwork and get quotes for framing the existing fireplace in with a modern border - not so much a mantle - but some type of finishing and instead of recessing the TV framing it. I'm having a very hard time visualizing this and therefore difficulty trying to describe the job to a wood worker. This is an inspiration photo she saved for us (instead of a framed picture it would be a framed tv):

Phase 3. My current predicament.

I figured I'd remove the mantle to get some context and to make it easier for getting quotes. I've removed the mantle and the brick is higher than we originally guessed so we will need to demo 4-5 rows of brick (presumably) in order to mount the television at an appropriate and comfortable height. I also discovered the brick is physically just stacked masonry, it is not attached to the wall. It extends approximately 8" from the wall and the wall behind seems mostly hollow meaning we've got to create some sort of structural support for mounting the TV. I'm sure it doesn't making the framing idea impossible, but now I'm back to needing a general contractor drywall type person to resolve this issue. Or am I?

At this point I feel like we need to bring the sheet rock above the fireplace forward so it sits flush on top of the brick (throwback to our original idea, but less extreme than framing the whole thing in). This would bring the wall forward 8" and give us the space necessary to recess mount the TV. THEN we can have someone come in who knows wood work to marry the fireplace and wall together in some sort of fashionable cohesive way. It will end up being a hybrid of the two ideas, but is it going to look like garbage? Am I over thinking it? Should a custom wood worker be able to do all this? Would I have better luck with an audio/visual company that specializes in mounting TVs? Here are my latest inspiration photos. The second photo would be spot on for the look I think we're trying to achieve if the tv were framed or recessed. How do I word all this for contractors? Do you have any additional ideas on how we can achieve the look we're going for?

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