This has a lot of potential, if your are going with that Ralph Lauren,British antique feel... i invasion a very cozy fireplace,i would definitely add some wood elements,
Can you move the center piece and maybe get another one to place On either side of the lower half? This will balance it out.
On the top i would do wood shelves, complete with books and add a very decorative mirror with some yummy curves too it! Like this.. forgive my very professional rendering.

Thanks! What material for the bottom part (where you have black professional scribble;)? Would you color the back part of the wood shelves? Thank you so much Love the idea!

The bottom part would be 2 iron decorative pieces like you have in the center above the fireplace( at least it looks like iron too me ) 1 on each side. I don’t think i would color the back of the shelves, if you have a lot of books with the spines in the colors you have throughout, that would be enough.

Like this

look at the nice clean style that tozmo has posted; that would not be terribly expensive and would look wonderful with the style you are trying to achieve. Cover up all those odd angles and different niche spaces with wood for a cohesive style. Adding shelves would just make it even more of a jumble.

It could be beautiful and sophisticated looking.

Yes I love that look too!! So you think cover the 2 niches then and make it flat with dark wood ? Thank you for all suggestions, I really appreciate it

Yes, I would have the whole front built over with wood, like her pic shows.

These are in white, but just for the visual; it seems wood color would work better with your vision for your room:

painted could look nice and might be more affordable than nice stained wood:

You'd just have to have it built out something like this

It looks like it burns wood. Think about switching it to natural gas. They are easier and cleaner

Here some more pictures. I like the idea of rebuilding the whole thing and either find dark stained wood or paint (what color?) thank you so much for the ideas I got so far.

You can build a panel with raised trim, have "legs" come down under the mantle to the hearth like the picture below. Then tile around the fireplace. The thing I'm struggling with is what to do with your mantle. It becomes a larger project to rip it off and start over. You could cover it in wood but my concern would be that that makes it combustible that close to your fireplace. Not sure what the distance it is from firebox to mantle. Having something combustible on the mantle could cause a fire hazard. You could tile it in the same tile around the the fireplace but might look odd. If you painted the wood then I would paint the existing mantle the same color, problem solved. Can't see everything in the room but if it would match, i like the green olychick posted.

Porter Street Living Room · More Info

Too many little things on the mantel. I would consider adding one shelf in the recess on each side of the chimney with larger decorative items....or covering the whole overmantel with an attractive wood panel. The black metal-looking piece on the chimney breast doesn’t look like it belongs there...it’s too small.

Seems like there is a curvature to it that I would want to eliminate. Is that a window with drapes on the right? If so, consider this as you ponder the demo/remodel of the fireplace.