The choice of hearth depends on the style of your room decor as well as colour wise. Hearths can be bought ready to go from most fireplace suppliers in a range of colours and styles. Do you want to sit the fireplace on the hearth or on a ledge? We did not want the ready made angled style for our house. Our tiler did the lot from building & sheeting the hearth before tiling & sealing. We love it in our room setting of timber floor, timber ceiling and next to a timber wall.The consideration was fireproof materials and size/style of hearth guided by the building code. Other materials can be tile, glass, stone, concrete just have to be fire rated and professionally installed. Slate has been a popular choice forever and comes in different grades and colours but will need sealing most likely.

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By viable I mean workable, functional. A chimney sweep or a builder adept in chimneys will give you a report. Certainly enquire about a future gas fitting rather than logs if possible. I say this as a fireplace anywhere is delightful and, if downstairs, it could heat upstairs through the house, to a certain point too. If you look at the quality of the brick laying, you will see that its not meant to be a feature which is why it was rendered, but that is choice only. Certainly seal the bricks. Good luck and stay with it if you can. Everybody loves the romance of a fire.

haha!!!! Siri - you can have your Eiffel tower angel... give me the beach any day :) Nic - perhaps some driftwood, shells and a jar of sand might help bring the beach to you - just don't knock your sand flying or you'll literally be able to crank up your fireplace and lie down on your sand to sunbake lol.