Clarification - you want rustic/modern design, yet are taking off the stone on the fireplace? Current fireplace is beautiful as is and fits your rustic design. Would, however, consider options for the mantle.

Thank you for your suggestions.

Love current fireplace and rustic mantle.

I think you should keep the stone and change the mantle and hearth. The mantle could be longer and a darker color. I would find a different hearth stone for a new look. The current stone is perfect and may look totally different once you do your other changes.

For sure the cabinets to the left of the fireplace need updating. The fireplace itself - no.....just the mantel - as everyone says.

We had a fireplace very similar to this built with ‘field stone’. It was not a veneer. Those stones were structural. To remove them was to completely dismantle the fireplace. I don’t see repetition in stones on your fireplace and suspect that if you start ‘removing the stone’ you are tearing down the fireplace itself. Don’t do it. It is beautiful.

It’s not the stone that’s a problem, it’s everything else around it. Keep the stone, change the knotted pine floor to a wide plank rift cut oak and modernize the furniture.