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We went out to the house again today to wait for the plumber (for more on our frozen water pipes, see our previous post: House Redux). The plumber had to reschedule, but while we were waiting, we got quite a bit done. Another round of grass cutting for PJ, with the lawnmower set lower to the ground this time. Oh, and he spent 3 hrs on the phone with AT&T but that's another story. For me, some sweeping. And tidying up. I was really quite pleased, hardly any bugs (of any sort) inside the house. Smelled great almost everywhere, except for where the pipes burst (wet wood). While I was sweeping, I envisioned the walls with drywall on. And paint on the drywall, and kitchen cupboards and sanded/varnished floors and the big ugly stained beige fireplace all cleaned up and...Hmm...fireplace.
Fireplace Ideas
So this: 
is the fireplace the way it looks now (minus the walls, which have been stripped down to the original wide wood lathes). The wall on the left ends at the edge of the photo. As you can see, the fireplace is very overpowering on this wall. It takes up over half of the wall area, on a wall in a dark corner, with a relatively low ceiling (8', pretty standard). There's also the clash of the horizontal lines of the brick mortar and the vertical lines on the paneling (which is thankfully gone so no more problem there!) I think you'll agree that there's something awkward about the whole thing. My hypothesis is that the width of the fireplace seems to make the ceiling appear lower.
I've thought of a few ways to make the wall look taller and make the area look brighter. We have already decided to paint the walls a very light warm beige. I'm sooo not a beige person, but in this case, I think it's right. This is a north-facing room, so the light that comes in is filtered and bluish. The beige should warm it up and we are pretty set on it, though not the exact tone.
Stain vs. Paint
When doing my research on the internet, I found that a lot of people actually like the light brick look and are restoring their fireplaces to that look using specially produced multi-tint paint kits. As for paint, quite a few people think it's okay to paint a fireplace white (most other colours are frowned upon). A shock white fireplace would be nice, but it would stand out more. Standing out is not what we want for this one. So stain it is. I also like the idea of stain better than paint, because it will keep the natural rough organic textured look for each brick, whereas painted bricks tend to be smoother and glossier looking.
Tone it down...
My main idea to visually minimize the fireplace is to paint or stain the fireplace in the same colour tone as the walls, to (hopefully) make it blend in and feel less overpowering. Using a lighter shade on the walls and a slightly darker shade on the brick should make the walls look larger and the fireplace smaller. Here is what that might look like:
Not too different from the way we found it, except the dark and light colours are inverted, which could make all of the difference in the world to make the fireplace looks slightly smaller. We could also try it with an even darker colour, like so:
I kind of like this one, but I think light still wins. A dark stain would look rich and cozy, but kind of heavy and it's kind of personal, which probably isn't good for a potential buyer.
And here's what I think will really work to make this fireplace look nice:
Stain/paint the fireplace a color very similar to the wall. Put two little dark shelves on it to make it less symmetrical and give an optical illusion of height. Add paint or trim or a metal sheet above the fireplace opening to add verticality and cover up the darkest stains. Use different sized lights on either side to distract from the evenness of the behemoth and bring some brightness into this corner!
Or, to get really fancy:
This one is the same as above, but with added vertical stripes (paint? wood? mini shelves? decorations?) to bring the eye up even more. I've also added a fancily painted or metallic fireplace screen, which would carry over onto the hearth and lengthen the lines of the fireplace even more. But the easiest idea is probably what my husband suggested when he came by to see what I was working on. If I want to make the fireplace look slimmer, how about putting it on a diet, or maybe have it do some crunches! Silly! :)
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