Thank you Patricia for you comment. With stock being low and backordered, we settled for something that was in stock- we were in jeopardy of loosing our initial contractor which we did anyway (we had already purchased the tile). The floors are being replaced. Yes, the fireplace is wood burning. We need to select the stain color first so our contractor can mount the mantle.

Why do feel the t.v. placement is a bad choice?

TVs should only be put over the fireplace when there is no other option because that is too high to be a comfortable viewing height. That being said, that room is narrow, so I can see why you chose to do that. You can buy articulating arms that allow you bring the TV down when it's on if this matters to you. As for the stone, I guess it is now out of fashion, but I still like it, and if you like it, that's really all that matters.

I would stain the mantel to match the floors, or darker. Since you're not showing the floor I can't be sure which way to go there. I don't see anything wrong with the paint color as far as going with the stone on the fireplace. It just creates a gray box effect that I don't find appealing. But after you decorate the room it might be fine - and some people really like gray.

@kandrewspa Thanks for your input. We are replacing the floors. The color carpet on this room is mauve! I wanted to have the fireplace refaced I knew the tile was going to change the feel of the space. We purchased a t.v. mount made specifically for fireplaces from mantlemount.com. This mount allows the tv to be pulled down for viewing ease.

Although it takes time, your best bet is to get a similar piece of wood and try different stains. Once your floors are changed, the right tonal quality for the mantle will become more obvious. I would wait to seethe room with the new floors before staining that piece of wood. But try different colors - and mixing two if one is too dark or too light.

Okay, right now, nothing is right. You have an applied stacked stone fireplace that looks like it appeared out of no where. Continue with the stone on the entire wall.

Have the mantel stretch the entire width of the wall.

As for the t v, off set it with the fireplace (as how art is positioned in this photo). That can be done with a swing arm.

Boy! People are negative! I think your mantle needs to be a warm wood tone. I agree that you should stain it at the end, once everything is in.

@elcieg, thank you for this suggestion. We would have to build the wall out further to accommodate the fireplace. Great idea otherwise! @BeverlyFLADeziner, thanks so much for this mock up. I was thinking along this line although my husband is rooting for a greyish-color! @rollh01 Tell me about it! I almost took down my comment on another post because a Pro was very rude to me :-) My husband is feeling the warm wood tone. @NagyMama I appreciate you so much! Thank you so much for your kind words. We already have the mount- we got it from mantelmount.com. Their customer service is top notch!!!!! I am attaching a sample of the carpet we are putting in the space. It is a gray- my flash washed it out a little bit.

Below are 3 examples of different wood tones.

Dark wood shown with black sliding glass door and windswept tree gas burning sculpture with white glass chips.

Medium wood with black solid steel bifold glass doors

Grayish wood with special inside fit glass door with no side frame

P.S. We specialize in the Fireplace Glass Doors

looks very nice

@Hansen Wholesale Thank you so much. I was on your site and I see a couple of covers that I like. Thanks for sharing. @Олена Петренко Thanks so much!

@dboone330, If you need further assistance with the fireplace doors, be sure to use our FREE Fireplace Door Design Service. When you follow the instructions, your info will come directly to me and I can basically pick up where we left off and get you taken care of.

Thanks so much everyone! I am stuck between MW Smokey Brown & Harbor Gray semi-transparent stain for our popular wood mantle. What say you? :-)

Definitely the warmer color.. I fear gray had been overused for too long… natural wood colors will work with any new trends… I would consider a warm wash on the white stone as well …to make it a little less dazzling and more interesting… some horizontal paneling on that wall may make the room feel a little wider and expand the fireplace statement in a good way, as well

mix the two colors and get a custom stain.

What kind of wood is that mantle? did you get poplar??!

you don't want too gray or too brown. get both (in the smaller cans) and play around w/the mixture.

how about this color? (notice the small built-ins on the sides)

here's one with a bit of reddish brown

a bit lighter, more natural

You don't have to have a mantel, especially if you're doing a TV. do the soundbar in it's place.

this room is very 'cool' looking. all the grays and blue shades

This natural color would be nice to help warm up all those cooler gray tones.

Brings a little depth to the party.

what color is your furniture?

what is going on the sides of the FP? any bookcases? natural wood shelving?

who did the stonework? can you put a level or plumb bob from the top down to the bottom? is it even all the way down? it looks wider at the top.

too bad you couldn't inset your tv so that it's flush w/the stone

you could always do something like this over the stone

I don’t think either color does your room justice, dboone. I like Beth’s idea of mixing them and getting something a bit warmer toned in there. I personally am so tired of gray, even though I like it in bits and pieces. I also hope you’d think about doing the floor in a bit more neutral/medium tone. Your fireplace is beautiful but I fear it’d read too cold if you leaned too much into greys. I’m no pro, but I think medium wood tones are always in style, are classic and go with a broader color palette. Good luck!

How about this...

Hi Beth, I love the photos. I will run the leveler against the fireplace to ensure it is even. I pray that it is! The wood is poplar. I was going to get 2 etageres to go on each side of the fireplace however, with the fireplace being built-out, the space is very slim. I had thought about insetting the TV but changed my mind :-) Our TV mount has a bar for the sound bar.

Just to put your stain choices into perspective:

The 3 samples the manufacturer is using are a heavily grained hardwood, probably oak or walnut. Those types of woods take the true color of the stain into the grain and not much outside the grain. Poplar is a very soft wood and will likely lean on the dark end of the stain. I suspect your mantel will come out 3 to 4 shades darker than you are anticipating looking at the samples.

Focus more on the color in the grain of the samples. The mockup below is how I suspect the last sample you provided might look. I would suggest you take the mantel down and use the back side of it to test your stains. Either that, or get a fresh piece of poplar that is similar to the mantel.

Coordinate your stain for the mantel with the tones in your flooring. Consider doing floating shelves either side of fireplace and place a couple stools under bottom shelf. Add art on each side and simple accessories for clean look plus a couple green plants.

Poplar really isn't the best wood for staining. it's more of a paintable wood. You should have gone w/a walnut, oak, alder, or a good wood for staining.

test out some of the stains on a spare piece of the wood. poplar can have some weird green tones. You could go for dark and try doing an espresso or an ebony, but anything w/the gray is going to look weird w/that species of wood.

If you find out its crooked or don't like the mantel, I'd go for something like this.

do the entire wall w/this type of paneling (shiplap or tongue and groove) and get someone to copy the trim molding for the entire surround. (pretend the artwork is your tv in that pic). This way you could paint the surround your gray, and bring in a solid wood beam, just like the one shown. it will look better than the partial one you have.

Everyone should be as gracious as @dboone330! It's lovely, almost heavenly. I can see you and that cute hubby enjoying an evening in front of your fireplace soon.

Agree tosmo1. As my Mother always told me… if you can’t say something nice, shut up!! Advise several posters need to heed.
The room is beautiful and will be warm and lovely.

Another vote for staying away from gray and sticking to medium brown tones. Take what Beth said into consideration - poplar takes the stain different than other woods. Deeper, warm browns work with most rooms because it is neutral and looks like nature.

Can you get a piece of poplar to try these stains on first?

Thanks everyone! Tozmo1 and Norma, you guys are too kind. Yes, we have some extra poplar that we plan to test a couple of stains. Unfortunately, once we got to the hardware store, my desire for walnut changed when we saw the cost! Everything is inflated. Now is not the best time to do projects with a low budget! lol We started and now we need to finish.

To give a little bit of perspective. We hired a contractor and paid him a $1k deposit. I selected a black smooth ledger. Once the initial contractor gave me the count for the corner panels- our material matched his labor- so I cancelled the order. I told him that I was actively looking for material however many products was out of stock. I did not want to purchase tile that I couldn't live with. In speaking with a company out of state, the representative told me that based on what I told him (6' wide by 9' tall), he believed I was ordering too much tile & to check with contractor (I had already given him the sq ft provided by the contractor- 60 sq ft; 50 corner pieces). I circled back to our contractor (who was referred by a work-friend), and he responded that he gave us the correct measurements and then said he was cancelling our job because "working with us wasn't smooth". He said he would refund half of our deposit. So my husband thought getting the tile would prove that we wanted to move forward however this was not true (in case our deposit wasn't enough). The initial contractor said he was keeping half of the deposit for materials and 2 visits to our home. We agreed to pay him for his 2 visits however, he could make the materials up on another job- especially since he cancelled our job. He finally refunded us half. Fast forward to today. We are working with another contractor (yay). We ended up purchasing materials twice and have a lot of stone left. So you can imagine my mind- like could I have afforded the tile I really wanted? The good news is that Floor & Decor charge you per piece oppose to per box. We will get our money back on the extra tile. The other company only accept returns on unopened boxes. We found a great stone fabricator in our area Granite Creations who was an absolute pleasure to work with. They ended up having a slab of marble for our hearth. When they delivered it, the piece looks nothing like the slab I saw and took a picture of. I knew that I wasn't going to like it- like the stone ledger. They told me to let them know if I didn't love it once the stone was installed and they would swap it out. I am waiting for them to get back to me on this.

So here's where I am with this project. I am not a fan of the stone ledger or the hearth material. I wanted a vein look oppose to a granite look. We could have purchased granite for less :-) I pray that as we continue to renovate our home that projects will be less complicated. I am also trying to figure out our style for our home.

Thank you to all of you who have provided constructive advice. I am weighing it all in. I will provide updated photos of the stain and of course the final product. I wish I would have started this post before we started. :-)

Do what you love of course, but I really like your hearth. I think it adds to the dreamy cloud like look of the fireplace. Can you get a large piece of the other marble and lay it on top of the existing one for comparison? My concern about a piece with a lot of veining is that it all may get too busy. There is a lot of texture and movement in the stone. A veined marble might look great but it also might look too busy.

All you need is a pint of walnut stain. Lowes has it. Here is one option but I would get a walnut and ebony. Mixing some ebony into the walnut will deepen the walnut look. Just make sure all are water based. As to your hearth, make sure the current stone is sealed. Stuff from fireplace will stain it permanently if it isn’t well sealed. You could stain the stacked stone too if you wanted a warmer look. Easy to do, just have to tape off everything near it since it can be a bit messy.

Opps

I went back and re-read your dilemma and learned that you intend to replace the flooring throughout the first floor of your home. That probably includes the kitchen. Maybe instead of trying to choose a wood-tone for the mantel (a very small design area in the larger scheme of things) you should step back and decide what color of flooring will work best throughout your entire downstairs area. Maybe it won't matter and any tone will work with your kitchen cabinets - but then again, maybe it really will and having flooring that goes well in the other rooms is more critical than choosing a stain for the mantel right away. Once you've decided on the wood tone for the floor you can replicate that on the mantel if you'd like.

I want to add that I think the stone you chose for the fireplace wall is stunning and I honestly don't think you'll end up being disappointed in the light hearth stone. You'll have a dark area with the TV, a dark-ish stain on the mantel, and a dark area for the fireplace opening. Interior design folks always say it's wise to do things in odd numbers (3, 5) so having those three areas be dominant - with your light toned hearth - could work out just right for your design.

It's all going to be beautiful. Breathe deeply... 😊

@Flo Mangan, can you offer advice on how much Ebony to add to the American Walnut? We are picking up the stain today. My husband & contractor doesn't have experience mixing stains. Thanks. @ Everyone else, our electrical is done- recessed lighting & ceiling fan are both installed.

I'd use varathane or general finishes over minwax.

the only way to know what you like is to do samples. take a board of the wood and do small mixtures. 1:2, 1:1, 1:3, etc. then put them on the sample piece. see what you like.

Ebony goes a long way, so if mixing w/walnut or dark walnut, don't over do it.

Thanks Beth, I appreciate all of your help. I haven't ran a leveler against the fireplace yet. I'll keep you posted. I found out yesterday that I have Covid ὢC I will share photos as we move along. Many of you guys have been such a blessing to me! Thanks so much!

oh damn. well, rest up. I had it over xmas and recovered in a week. no other effects.

Oh get better. As to adding ebony, as Beth stated, go a little at a time keeping track of amounts and ratios so you can repeat in final choice.