A black fireplace with a black tv on the top of it on black carpet....sounds like a lot of black right there together. Do you have any art you could try on the mantle first? You have lots of little things scattered around there now with one big thing. Can the clock hang on a small wall in this room instead?

Ahh I forgot to mention that the carpet is being taken out.. It's very old carpet.. There are nice original hardwood floors that will be re-sanded!

Well, now, hardwood floors, huh? NICE! Black still just sounds soooo harsh for a fireplace. A gray wash I might be able to be talked in to. Are you keeping the front door as is? The mantle does match that, which is nice. Might want to keep that in mind when you choose paint colors and think about the wood and all in this room, too.

Also, I should make mention that is everything is gone from the room.. These are pictures from when the previous owner was there. I can get new pictures of the room bare though..

I had originally of going with painting the brick white to give it a more modern look but couldn't decide what would look good on the walls and what do I do with the huge wooden door...

What color is your living room furniture?

It's actually the same color as the furniture in that picture.

I can see a white wash on the fireplace with a light shade of gray on the walls.

Tan?

Correct! Hmm... Gray never thought about that- Is there a certain type of paint that you need to use to paint the fireplace? Also, that gold surround really throws the whole thing off at least that's the feeling I get.

Do you know what white color the prior owners used on the walls? If not, ask. It will be hard to decide on a white for the fireplace if it's going to be a different "white". Plus, even with the same white, white walls age over time, and it still might appear to be different.

With hardwood floors, you can leave the door & trim the same for now, but eventually you may want to paint the inside of the door & trim white (a travesty I know, but sometimes it makes a difference and stands out less). But don't do that until you know how the floors look, and decide on a stain color for the floors. I like the stain on the door, maybe start there, also it matches the stain on the molding around the room.

I know there is always an "itchy" feeling to do everything NOW when moving into a new home. However, I think once you make your other decisions (removing the carpet, refinishing the floors), you'll end up with a better idea of what you want to do with the fireplace and walls. Just my opinion. Sometimes style & decorating "over time" is your best friend and allows you to avoid mistakes that then have to be re-done.

If you're looking to update the fireplace, you could tile over the brick and put in a railway sleeper mantle. The walls will be great in color but that depends on your color palette. Figure out what colors are going to be in the room; sofa, chairs and throw pillows then select your wall color. I'ts harder to pick a wall color when you haven't decided the room. Paint color is easy to select once the furnishings are decided.

You can use a rustoleum heat resistant paint....it is in a can even and just sprays on.....choice of several colors, too. We got ours at Menard's. Maybe that is where you want to start......paint that part of the fireplace and get the floors finished and YOUR THINGS in the room and stand back and see how it feels.

The brass insert can be removed, masked and spray painted with high heat black spray paint available at your local home store. To decide on paint colors, you will want to have a goal regarding your style and accent colors. Painting out all the trim even should wait for some ideas there, because some color stories go best with a crisp white and some go best with a creamy off-white.

Do you love cottage style - this house has some cottage-y things going on with it? That would mean you probably want a creamy off-white like sw dover white for your trim, and then you could get the same color in masonry paint (yep, formulated differently) in a high gloss for your brick.

You can then paint the walls in any shade - though that is not the best place for a "pop" of color. Pops of brighter color typically come in accents, and art and you would use a muted shade on the walls. A contrasting color on the walls that work well with a wood floor would also depend on the tone of the wood floor - which you will select when you refinish it.

I will suggest that one of the more timeless floor colors is a medium walnut tone. It avoids some of the warm / red tones in cherry finishes that can limit your color pallette and yet is not so dark that it shows every speck of dirt. Since your entry and hearth tiles are rather dark gray, a deeper wood tone will flow better from them than if you wanted bleached white floors, for instance.

For cottage style, instead of the neutral grays or beiges on the wall, I would suggest a pale tone that you wish to use as an accent in brights or deeper tones - if you like aqua, a pale blue-green like ben moores palladian blue. If you like sunshine yellow / dijon gold and navy, a muted tone like behrs pale honey or sw concord buff for the walls. If you use autumn tones (rust, persimmon, harvest) then something in the green family like sw svelte sage or ben moores grecian green will make a calm, nature based backdrop for those warmer tones.

Abbyjean asked you about your furniture because the primary upholstery you have will give us clues - one black wood chest and television doesn't give much away.

I give these examples because you might be putting the cart before the horse.

If you want the room to look contemporary, then painting the trim bm decorator white and the walls pale gray bm alaskan husky and the fireplace a deep gray tone like bm sabre gray - it will give you a very cool neutral contemporary palette for any colors you want to use. You could go warm with neutral beiges and white. We don't have enough clues to give you something that works with what you have now but takes you in the direction of what you want.

Know what kind of room you love most before you take off with color - maybe even build some ideabooks for inspiration from living rooms here on houzz - then you can post some of them and say - here's what I want, and here's where I'm starting. We can help a lot then.

ps. congratulations on your new home - it is a really exciting achievement! You might really like to follow one of my favorite house blogs, younghouselove.com - they are on their third house now which just means you can go back and look at inspiration for two other houses and they have a lot of integrity about what they share.