Our home has one main open living space. This makes life easy with kids and parties lots of fun. When we moved here there were two of us and now there are four. So, as we started thinking about a family room remodel we knew that our television had to go above the fireplace to make more room for playing, partying, and dancing! And not to mention toys and furniture.
Fireplace Before
Our fireplace has been the same since the home was built in 1986 and it needed a face lift. Red brick isn't terrible but the brass doors were. A great way to spruce up your brick fireplace is to paint the brick. That was not an option for us because the brick was coming away from the wall.....time for demo and dusting.
Now to the fun part of picking out the design of the fireplace.
There are lots of options out there.
From painted brick, wood, wallpaper, tile, slate panels, and stone.
Look at Norstone for wall, fireplace, and pool designs in slate panels. These are a bit pricey ($13 a panel) but go to your local tile store and you might find a cheaper slate panel. Example below:
contemporary living room design by san francisco architect Mark English Architects, AIA
More inspirations for your fireplace.
Painted Brick
eclectic living room design by chicago kitchen and bath Rebekah Zaveloff
Tile Fireplace
Wallpaper Fireplace
Janell Beals - Isabella & Max
Wood Fireplace
Stone + Fireplace = Our Inspiration
Now that you have forgotten what my ugly and falling fireplace looked like before demo...
MY Fireplace After
Ok...so, I was worried about going with stone because I thought it might look like a log cabin in my living room and I am not a log cabin kind of girl. We looked at a veneer stone, Centurion, which is cheaper but just didn't WOW me. Thanks to suggestions by Native Designs, who did the work, we went with natural stone with a flagstone hearth. The hand cut rocks are beige, tans, and grays. The clean square and rectangle cut stones and the dry stack (no grout) gives a traditional stone fireplace a more modern look.
Work done by NATIVE DESIGN
My living room looks so big now that the TV is not on a low TV stand. It is also not the center of our universe anymore....it is up and out of the way. So, no more yelling at the kids to stop touching the TV and no more dusting off little finger prints.
So, let's dance!
Found this at HOME GOODS for about $15...love it! Makes a great bookend. The 'National Geographic' mags are my husband's. He has to express himself too...he feels worldly when he reads them. 
Found a similar sculpture on 
