That is one tall install over the mantel.

Leave the built-in paint color as is, and the horizontal trim as is, and paint the entire wall the gray of the “chimney" panel.

Your room is lovely…please do not get angry with me, but that panel looks like a door on steroids.

what is the gray above the mantle? is it tile, stone , wood?

let me show you a few examples of something that might look a bit better.

BTW, your fan is far too small, hung way too high for the size of that room.

this one is similar to your fireplace and cabs. It's a darker gray, but it seems to work better w/the fireplace surround

this one is almost the same as your surround. I know the ceiling is shorter here,

but if you did the trim work above it like the first one, or this one, I think it would look nice w/your beams and built in's. You could paint the bottom cabs a darker color to match like shown above

or, do the back panel inset like they've done here.

if you wanted to do stone or tile, I'd recommend doing this. any chance of doing windows?

photoshopped the stone and a lower fan

they did stone above this one (which is also a similar surround to yours. ignore the wood mantle)

you could always just paint it white like shown here

Wow Beth those are beautiful choices that you have offered.

What is the space to the right of your living room? It looks like a cased opening with the same stained trim as the horizontal trim on the fireplace wall. I think those strong horizontal lines are jarring. Can those be removed?

Ok, well I asked about the built-ins and got much more! ;)

JudyG - I can see why it looks that way in the photo, but it doesn't so much in person. I zoomed out so I could get as much as the room as possible, so though it is tall, it's not as out of proportion as it looks in person. The current color of the built-ins is a creamier color than the concrete fireplace surround and it doesn't look good together.

Beth H - The install above the fireplace is made of steel sheet metal. As far as the fan, I did want something minimal so as not to add more to the space in addition to that major metal instal;, though I did question the size and length of the fan with company and the guy, who claimed to work in the industry for 20 years, said he'd never sold a download longer than 48 in and that this size was good for a 16x17 space. Ceilings are 19 ft.

I wish we could've done stone; we committed to the metal and when removing the previous surround, found beautiful stone underneath that would've been lovely to put up, but it would've thrown us way off budget at that point - metal was made and ready to be installed. The the brick is still underneath the concrete surround/metal so that'll be taken into the next iteration of this home - which is WAY down the road. Our budget now includes paint and accessories. I love the ideas you've shared and wished I would've seen them sooner! So maybe paint the built-ins the same as the walls and then the cabinets a darker color to stand out? Like the 2nd or 3rd photo.

Also adding windows to integration 2.

The stair used to be white spindles and copper spirals, it was terrible and we wanted something cleaner, so no, the bars have to stay. Here's a pic of that part of the room:

Also - nothing has been 'styled', just livable. I haven't done the bookcases, the sofa table behind the couch is the wrong size and color, also hate the light in the kitchen, but I didn't want to overwhelm this question with all of the issues in the room.

Thank you, I appreciate all the suggestions!

Beth H - I love the mock up.

Why not try looking at a few of our images from a design we did for a client. Notice the color we painted the built-ins.

High-End Residence · More Info

High-End Residence · More Info

That's a beautiful gray - what is it?