I think it looks great, and I love the blotches, but don't care for the trowel marks aren't placed throughout the surface. Love the "below" view, tho. Talk to the installers to see what remedies they might have. I don't think solid paint is the the answer - you need something with texture that is slightly uneven.

I would wait till all of the furniture/textiles are in the room before trying to change it.

Have you seen an example or photo of this type of finish that is more to your liking? You could show it to the builder and see if there is something they can do. It is a very large area and may be difficult to just change parts of it. It probably would need a complete redo. On my computer it looks great!

Thanks all! It's good to hear other folks don't think it looks bad. :) It may just be something I need to get used to. I was expecting more of a smooth but slightly textured finish without all the big blotchy areas. I'll see how it looks when I get my furniture in there and then may need to have someone come back to help change it at that point. The only problem is that becomes quite difficult once there's furniture in the room especially with 28 foot tall ceilings and needing scaffolding in there to reach the top of the chimney.

I really like how it looks. Very cool if you add all the fireplace decorations. I also consider using micro cement by https://festfloor.pl/ for my fireplace

I think it looks great, that’s part of the beauty of micro cement is that it‘s a slighty imperfect surface not solid colour

Apply another coat for uniformity and make sure he’s not diluting the cement and always mixes with equal parts of cement and water