Stone ranch-style chimney breast - what would you do?

[Childoftheseventies]

Help me in my interior design challenge.... our 1978 bungalow has an exposed solid stone chimney breast about eight feet across. Kind of American ranch style. It is a big room, so is in proportion but is hideous. I think the quality of the stone and the craftsmanship is probably great - it is just so dated. Our plan is to enlarge the tiny fireplace in it, install a woodburner and board over the stone. And then decide how to decorate. That's another story though. What would you do - embrace the stonework or cover it up?

Sledgehammer

I'd cover it but that's because it usually makes a room and the fireplace look smaller to have it exposed. Is it a small room?

Can you paint the stone? I like white painted brick/stonework. Would help lighten the room.

Totally rock it and buy a moose head

I'd cover up. Yesterday. More to the point could YOU live with it?

Have considered going down the antler road then rapidly reconsidered - am not cool enough to do ironic. The room is a good size (children call it 'the big room') so whilst it is a feature it does not dominate. Thought of painting, but slightly worried that although not to our current tastes, it could be like Victorian period features - in fifty years time people will gnash their teeth over us having painted the stone. Thought if we boarded it up, it could be 'revealed' if it came back into fashion. It is pourous sandstone so painting will be irreversible. Sledgehammer also considered, but is a structural element. We would have an open plan lounge-garage if we knocked it down.

I think we need a pic.

I would embrace it. Not with antlers though. Could you go for a slightly sixties modernist feel with it - so dated it's cool...?

I've always wanted one of these houses

I'd board it up. Although will that be ok with a stove?

I'm embracing mine for now but we messed up and didn't fork out to have the stove set into it, which I regret. We've stuck it in front on a slate hearth then hung a big mirror on it.

One day I'm going to open it up and put in a big oak beam. I did have a conversation with DH about boarding it in the other day but it matches the stone on the front of the house and it's a part of the house as are the huge picture windows so I've made my peace with the stone aspect of it.

If you don't want to knock it down, skim it and paint it the same colour as the rest of the room, except the wall opposite which should be a colour.

one of the doing-up-a-house shows did what civilFawlty suggests. The chimney breast really did 'disappear' and the room was lovely!

Thank you! I keep hoping to see a TV show tackling a 70s fireplace but haven't come across one yet. Just can't do the retro thing - bit like when fashions come around again - if you remember them the first time, you shouldn't do it the second time. By skimming, do you mean -plastering over the stone so you still see the shape? Or making it totally smooth?

I would board it up ,new england style boards and paint

maybe like this

another one

I would disguise it with painted timber cladding.

I would smooth-render the fireplace and paint it white. It will then look minimalist and lovely.

Hadn't thought of timber cladding. Maybe go a bit Scandinavian / New Englandy. Loving the ideas - thank you. Of course, such decisions never come in isolation - the 'fireplace solution' has fit with the 'we need to keep the sofa and armchairs so we need to work the scheme around them' debate.

I would also render it and paint it.

But if you want something reversible, boarding it up would also work.

Either way, you could leave a border of stone exposed around the fireplace hole - bit like the brick in ggirl's first link? That way, you can show off the lovely stone without having so much of it.