Massive 70s fireplace

[Fernyfloor]

So I've bought a house with a full stone 70s fireplace. We want to renovate rather than remove it. The centre hole has a wood burner in it ready for fitting. The room is freezing cold and we desperately need it.

But I am wondering what to do about the look of the fireplace. The beams are actually concrete made to look like wood. These need painting again. Currently they're dark brown. Would you use the same colour or paint them black?

The mortar between the stones has been done so that it effectively forms a ridge that stands proud of the stone. I'm not a fan but not sure I can do much about it.

The mortar has been poorly applied in places and loads of the stones are stained with it. There are even drips from where the mortar has been allowed to drop over the stones. Is there anything I can do about this?

Finally the alcoves look a bit strange and I wondered about painting the back of the alcoves white and then getting some lovely pieces to put in them. Or I could possibly plaster the back of the alcoves and then paint. At the moment the alcoves have glass vases and bottles which I have put those led string lights in. It looks nice when they're on but we only do it now and again because switching them on and off is a faff. Any thoughts on this?

If you are having a woodburner I would fill one side with wood for the burner.

A wire brush will get off the mortar drips. It will clean up. Honestly it should only take half an hour to get mortar drips off. It might look better then.

@Onionpatch yes just talked to DH about some kind of fuel store as that should look better.

@caringcarer you wouldn't think a wire brush will damage the stone? I might test a stone.

I agree with using one alcove for the wood store. As for the mortar, you could get it repointed so the mortar is recessed and not proud.
I think the concrete lintels look good in the dark brown so I would probably leave them like that.
Hope the wire brush removes the drips without damaging the stone. I don't think it would, but even with a bit of damage I think they would look better than the current drips.

Goodness that's quite a feature isn't it! I'd agree with the wire brush to tidy up the stains and everything else that's been written above. When you get the fire connected, I'd discuss options with the guy then. You could have it all repointed or rendered, but that's hopefully just cosmetic work rather than anything essential.

LED lights, you can get some mains operating that are controlled via a remote, or you can get some battery ones that have a timer - they stay on for 6 hours every 24 hours, so if you switch them on (once) at 17:00 they will go off at 23:00 and come on again at 17:00 the following day.