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.

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.

I have used Saatchi Art (saatchiart.com) to both browse and purchase art for our home. Original art work can be purchased and most artists have prints at a more affordable price. It's a good place to determine what styles and mediums you love as you can filter your search. For Australian art I love Blue Thumb (bluethumb.com.au). All Aussie and all original. Very few options for cost effective prints unfortunately. I'd be cautious about filling the space for an instant look. As everyone before me has said "art is personal" and as such, I think it should grow with you and your space. Start with one piece that you really love, big or small and work around that. I have found that putting unusual unexpected items on the wall makes for interesting 'art'. My husband's baby shoes (circa 1953) and now our children's first shoes are objects that always create conversation when guests come over. I have a Mexican art cross (we're not religious, the colours and the metal work drew me to it), a vintage wooden Indian spindle, African birds in a tree hand-beaten and cut from a steel drum, a clay mask my daughter made in art class, a woven Maori kit bag, some art that our kids have done at school (put into Ikea frames so they are always the right size. We change them as something else we love comes home), a hand-made ceramic tile, a growing collection of geckos found in antique stores, vintage travel posters in frames, (I'll stop listing what we have!)...all these items and more, have been collected over the last 20 years and put up around our collection of art or in clusters to create stories. I've collected the initials of our family (yes the child with the "K" is not thrilled it's so small and the child with the "G" feels he's by far the favourite! Needless to say both will be replaced in the future when a more appropriate size comes to light) from vintage stores both here and overseas. Our walls are a growing collection of art and objects and at any time I can move things around and change the composition as a new item is discovered. Best advice I can give you is to have fun with it, enjoy creating your own gallery, it's for you to love you're not required to impress anyone else.

Lightening the mortar will look great and keep those lovely bricks as the feature of the room. Eventually a few other ways to brighten the room could be: lighter coat of paint on the walls & a tall indoor plant or wall art in place of book shelves (if you have another spot for the shelves that is). Gorgeous room - look fwd to seeing the before/after pics when you colour mortar. :)