Was thinking maybe just painting the grout to freshen it up...

You need to show the whole room to see your style.

The brick looks nice.

Find a better location for the TV.
Remove the curtains.
Reassess your decor items once the overwhelming and too high TV is gone.

There's a lot that's not right here, but the brick is not the issue. Please post pix of all four walls so you can get this room sorted before you mess with the FP.

Put the paint brush down. That is a lovely fireplace. I wouldn't touch it.

following

The fireplace brick looks fine...it’s the decor which is “off”.
Put the TV at eye level to a seated adult (I would strain my neck looking up there for an hour). Put it on or just over a 30” high credenza or cabinet.
Put a nice painting over the mantel.
The metal bucket is not adding anything to the fireplace.
Get the curtains off the hearth. Shorten them to window length.

I agree.................the fireplace may be fine.........could be your furnishings.

I like the brick, but there is an awful lot of brown and tan engulfing it.

Get the curtains off the hearth (and put more substantial ones there). Add color. Move the TV.

the brick isn't bad. it could go either way.

That curtain however,,,please remove that and the mini blind. leave it bare or do a nice type of roman blind, woven wood blinds or inset shade. (if you need the privacy, then do the woven wood or roman blind on an inset mount. it's much cleaner looking)

this is a similar FP set-up (with the window off to the side) to show you some other ideas

try removing everything on your window and putting up a potted tree or tall plant instead.

if you white wash it, it would look like this

paint it white:

Tv needs to go elsewhere, remove curtains.

As others have said, that's not the best place for the TV. There are the problems mentioned above; plus - if you ever use the fireplace, heat and smoke are not good friends to anything electronic.

As far as your refresh, while your fireplace brick doesn't really look dirty or anything, it's sometimes amazing how much a nice thorough washing can brighten something up. I'd remove all the stuff, vacuum the brick thoroughly, (test a small patch around the back first), and then scrub from top to bottom using a medium-soft scrub brush and warm water with just a touch of dishwashing liquid.

Agree with everyone else. It's not the brick that's the problem- it's the TV overwhelming it and the brown curtains.

We white-washed our orange brick fireplace. Best decision ever! My only regret is that we didn't go full white. Probably will down the road. The nice thing about white washing is you can always decide to go more opaque after you start.

But I also like your brick