If you get good dry wood and for the right price I'd go with wood everytime. It burns hot, dry and clean. However not everyone has the ability to get the wood, nor has time to stack, bring it inside, etc.. I'd have a wood fire for the look and feel but just use it occasionally if regular wood supply is not possible. Electric reverse cycle is very efficient now and even better when used with solar power. Gas was the way to go for heating up until a few years ago now its back to electric again.... Keep the open fire and have electric reverse cycle as well! I'd keep the chimney but add some corbel's to it. Maybe the blue feature brick like on the window sills. You could make the chimney a feature rather than trying to do the opposite.

Hello, Your room is attractive but you are sensing something is not quite working and i think we use should use that feeling to look more critically. At the moment the room can't quite decide if it is luxe or rustic, Mid century or contemporary loft style. I think the success for you will be in making that decision and using that to guide your choices. Search these styles on houzz and decide your preference. Eclectic can work but not so well in this style of home as you need to consider the scale of all your pieces which should be larger than average due to the height of the ceiling Given this my advice would be ... Move the TV to the other wall which frees up the area below you could add further shelving in this area or a black or white midcentury styled pot planter on legs with a strong architectural looking plant, I think Ezi buy may sell these but there will be other suppliers. depending on your cushion choice - I would n't use too much black in this room. Your area is large enough to put a slim line mid century styled cabinet against the wall and place the tv on this if you don't want to wall mount it. Change the lighting overhead and the fan as brass is very dated and you should stick with the chrome of the larger lamp. You could consider a chrome pendant or collection of 3 at different heights where the tv is currently. Your brick wall is your feature so don't add wall paper or any other colour to the wall behind the couch other wise the room will become fragmented. You could either whitewash the brick wall or leave it as it is as the current tone looks like it adds warmth and blends with the timber and the furniture. If it is quite yellow you could look at a whitewash. I would not hang artwork on the brick as this is your feature wall and you don't need anything else confusing the eye as the room has good bones and your features are structural so they shouldn't be cluttered. You do need art on the white wall which should remain white but you could freshen up if that doesn't mean a full repaint of the house. If you are going to change the white brush out some old wall paper with different tones and see how they work with the bricks. Go for something that is framed in what or a mirror or round - Ezibuy have a lovely oak frameless round mirror at present on sale. 2 find and design and Annb1997 have offered some good suggestions for fireplaces and if you remove the hearth you will need to decide on what to do with the flooring. If your carpet is in good condition i think it goes ok for now changing to charcoal [ which is a colour I love] will fragment your room as it goes through to the bedroom - some time it is a case of defining where you will stop so I would try to simpler things first. If it is still ok I would look at a rug - think about coordinating with your cushions in some way. See below. You could change out your cushions and bring in some texture with a couple of colours at the moment they look a bit luxe and shiny. A strong print would be good have a look at Marimeko or Orla Kiely. These designers have a retro feel with good colours and crisp designs which would enhance the loft/ potentially midcentury feel of the house. Start with the small things first. Good luck please post the outcome.

I chose neither because my childhood was spent building our own cubbies. Sometimes outside under a tree or in a tree. Sometimes inside under a chair or under a table. By not having a cubby we used our imagination to engineer our own from what ever we could lay our hands on. We spent hours morphing our cubby and like harryinahurry the cubby's purpose was fluid depending on who was playing. It was home one minute, school next minute, another planet or even under the sea. Kids I know that had cubbies only played in them for a short while before their imaginations carried them outside and away on their next adventure.

Lovely fireplace, but back to the two main questions. Will removing the render make a mess? Yes, there is no easy, clean way to remove render, and there is no guarantee that the material underneath the render will be in a condition that you would want to live with, without additional finishing. The fine dust will be the worst as it gets everywhere. Is there sandstone under the render? Based on the age of the house and being of cheaper weatherboard construction I would have thought it unusual to have an expensive, labour intensive sandstone fireplace, unless it was a sandstone veneer on top of structural brickwork, which was commmon in the late 1950's and 1960's. However you did mention that there are sandstone stumps which are pretty rare, as hardwood, brick or concrete stumps were commonly used. Why would anybody craft sandstone stumps? Your close-up photo does look like it may be sandstone, although it could be where the decorative, textured, top render coat has chipped away from the coarser, base render coat. I am curious to know why anybody would render a sandstone fireplace, and the sandstone plinth below the weatherboard? I think that the first thing you need to do is to confirm that the stumps and plinth are actually sandstone, as they would be very unusual for a 1950's weatherboard house. I am not sure how structurally safe sandstone stumps would be unless they were broad and shallow, not thin and tall like most stumps. The curved, upper part of the fireplace is most likely bricks laid as a soldier course, with render over the top, as curved sandstone slab is hard to carve cost-effectively. If the height of this curved part is about 230mm-240mm then it is most likely brickwork. You can also check the recess between the rectangular base and curved top to see if it matches standard brick dimensions. I would be very cautious about removing the current render as I think that it is less likely there is sandstone underneath, and even if there is sandstone it won't be in great condition being a porous stone which has had render over the top. Best of luck, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls