apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i would paint it a color you love (or wallpaper if you're that way inclined) and display some beautiful art - either a sculpture/3d object of some sort that fills up 70% of the space.. or a lovely painting...( that doesn't clash with the base color/wallpaper of course)

or less fun but you need storage, also paint it but put in some shelves...

put some lights in there, and a vase with flowers. Or you can treat it as a shadow box: again, put some lights in, mount a print (photo, artwork, or a pattern) to the back wall, and paint sides a shade or two darker to form a frame.

as for a mantel - floating shelf might work.
another idea for an alcove - wine bar: just put in a couple of glass shelves.

We had a similar issue with an area of our house when we moved in, and quite honestly what we decided to do was actually drywall it in. Just because it's there, doesn't mean you have to keep it as such. That way you could then have a mantle, as you wouldn't be competing with the space above it. I would then put artwork all along that wall.

You'd loose storage space, but then ask yourself if you really want storage as your focal point above your fun fireplace. ;)

That is just my first instinct, but I'm sure others will have other fabulous ideas!

Did you see that DIY bookcase becomes a mini Bar post last week (ish)? I'd paint that space and make it into a bar in a similar manner.

The odd little alcove beneath it (I'm assuming that was for the peripherals?) could also house shelving; I'd find bookshelf or something similar that fits closely into the space sideways, put wheels and a handle on it, and make pull-out shelving to hide all the DVD/Game clutter.

I would definitely not use it for storage of little knick knacks. fireplaces are focal points so you want something that is enjoyable to look at. you should put something large and decorative there that will fill the space. an interesting sculpture would look great, or some glass pieces. or perhaps and interesting drift wood branch, set off by the back wall being painted or wallpapered perhaps? you could consider adding a single shelf (glass), but I think that would encourage collections of little things that would look cluttered.

I agree that the fireplace needs some definition, too. maybe not a full mantle, but even a simple shelf or just some kind of border. also, the pictures above the fireplce really need to be replaced with something larger (or a few larger pieces). those belong on a table, shelf, or maybe in a grouping with larger pieces to anchor them. I'd love to see an after photo!

It could look cool if you painted the entire wall a great color and then just wallpapered the alcove in a coordinating paper. I think you could actually have a mantle - a simple chunk of wood running from the outside corner of the alcove to the outside edge of the tile. You could then rest a painting or mirror on the mantle above the fireplace and cluster some vases or something in the alcove. I don't know if you plan to replace your window coverings but I don't think those swags are doing you any favors.

I agree with the drywall comment. I was just thinking about this over the weekend when I saw a show where the real estate agent was trying to upsell the tv niche. All I could think was that most people are moving to flat panels these days and the niche is awkward. I'd fill it in and hang something nice over your fireplace.

It probably depends on the rest of your decor in this room as to what is the most appropriate decoration, but whatever you put in there (interesting mod lamp, driftwood like someone suggested, or sculpture) I would definitely also remove those two smaller pictures on the right and put in a framed mirror or work of art the same dimensions as the alcove next to it, to balance it out. They look kind of dinky right now.

If you went with a mini bar and a mirror next to it, then you could install built-in xxxx shaped wine shelves in the little alcove underneath, that would look lovely, I think. And a floating shelf for a mantle is a great idea that could tie it all together. Please post the after photos!

drywall both those alcoves....nothing you do will really look good........

fill both it with firewood.
firewood is pretty. (not the kind you get outside the grocery store though)

Put in floating shelves and paint them the same colour as your wall. End of story

I, too, vote Drywall. You can DIY that project as there is plenty of info on the net to help you.

If you can't drywall immediately because either your scared or you can't afford to have someone do it, then paint the entire fireplace wall including alcoves the same accent color. You could totally pretend it wasn't there and hang some art. It doesn't have to cover the entire alcove..just a fair amount.

I was going to say fill it with firewood, too. It would look good with the logs on their sides filled to the top so all you could see would be the ends of the logs, or you could fill a bucket/basket/pot with firewood and put it in the larger alcove. You could always just cover it with a large poster, too. Then just hang art all over that wall.

another thought--do you have an amp? if it's the right size, you could put your amp in there and make that whole wall kind of an electronics wall (put your stereo in the small alcove, hang a music poster over the fireplace, etc.). i'm assuming the alcove has an outlet since it was originally for a tv.

I would put some cupboard doors over it. You could use shutters and repeat them over the fireplace to play down the asymmetry. A large sliding screen would provide a similar solution with a much different feel.

Get a safe, and the put a painting over it, on hinges!

I vote to drywall over it. It looks so awkward off to the side there. Don't they usually put them right above the fireplace? And use the smaller one below for firewood.

I vote fill it with round aspen or birch logs (ends facing out, not side to side) and put large artowork over the fireplace. The diminiutive pictures you have do nothing for the focal point in your home or for the pictures.

I LOVE the firewood idea.

The other option is... DRYWALL! Those niches are odd and outdated. Just get rid of them.

Then replace the two small pictures now hanging over the fireplace; they're much too small. Install a mantel if you like. Make the fireplace a focal point.

Since your firebox is not centered between the windows, you're going to have to play with the art to create symmetry. Just keep the scale of the art larger, and you'll be fine.

Ditto Firewood -

- and put the DVD's someplace else - That's an eyesore.

It looks like a very large size. But ... hey decorators, how would getting a huge canvas that would cover it entirely and then DIY a modern simple wall art piece? Would that work?
And since it would be offset, would need to be balanced with something else on the fireplace too...like arroyo mentioned.

drywall. and when you move your dvds, please put them away, out of sight. dvd boxes are to interior design that pimples are to a model's face.

Thank you all for the great ideas!

So the bottom alcove next to the fireplace has a switch to turn on the gas fireplace (so it can't be completely sealed off).

We considered putting our electronics in the alcove, tho then we'd have wires running out of it to reach the tv. The tv is on its own stand to the left of the torch lamp (which isn't there anymore).

I've also taken down the photos and plan to swap out the purple swag curtains with something more colorful. There were already 2 nails in the wall when we moved in, so we just lazily hung up those photos. We have more appropriately scaled photos in other parts of the condo.

Ideally, we'd like to be able to store our dvds somewhere in the living room as there are no cabinets/shelves other than our tv alcove.

It's not a big deal to have that gas line extended out of the bizarre lower cutout. A plumber can do it for you.

I agree with the safe idea. Install a safe with a painting on hinges over it. You can store you priceless DVDs in there. Or get your Guitar Hero axe signed by a venerable rock god and display under an overhead light.

"Ideally, we'd like to be able to store our dvds somewhere in the living room as there are no cabinets/shelves other than our tv alcove."

A while ago, some smart fellow invented something called "furniture" - pieces that have drawers and shelves and doors where you could put unsightly things like DVD's away. I'd consider getting some...

The proportions of the 2 alcoves are just not right together. I would keep the lower aclove and fill with wood, and drywall over the top alcove. After that you can create a new mantel across the whole space, plus add larger artwork over the fire place. If you absolutely need media storage, then storage shelf like an Ikea Lack W shelf or CB2 Storage shelf instead of the mantle is good.

At first I couldn't think of any way besides drywalling to deal with these bizarro alcoves, but even that wouldn't solve the problem of the fireplace location.

So I did some surreptitious Photoshopping (shh!! I'm at work) and this is what I would do, if 'twere my fireplace:
http://i42.tinypic.com/k1430o.jpg

Basically, it's a parted-out bar - I'd put glasses and shelves and fancy booze in there, myself. Add in some pretty green or grey drapes and you'd be golden! It would suit whatever your style is if you just picked art and wood colors and a wallpaper or paint color that appealed to you.

Hang a tri-panel [mirror|scupture|picture|collage] above the fireplace, and make your TV space into a secret alcove. The panel doesn't have to cover the complete alcove. I'd put firewood in the lower alcove, as above.

Hmmm--so I don't see any kids things, so I'd assume that a valid idea is turn the bottom alcove into a wine rack (maybe you drink wine? Melanie's picture has some sort of visual of what it looks like, but you may have to correct for the switch's location) and then you could put shelves in the upper alcove for glasses and/or the DVDs...if your DVDs are still visible, a cool way to store DVDs is by color-it adds some interest instead of looking hodge-podge-y.

You could also paint the inside of the alcoves a different color than white (or paint your room a different color than white) to make things more interesting.

on the bar idea, i think, if you looked really hard, you could find a small rolling cart to fit in there (you might luck out with finding a cart meant for a bathroom) places glasses for the bar there. then use the top part for a bar and put a shelf in for pictures, etc.

And when you get some furniture for storing your DVDs, don't think you have to get some hideous tower or singular functioning pig of a shelf for them either. Get something with drawers or cabinets.

I think drywalling the hole is the best idea. Something fun might be to put a time capsule in it. That room needs some work, it sounds like you're getting to a lot of things, but don't think about the hole anymore. I think a mantel would give the space a very nice look, and all you need to do is make sure that very wide hole has some kind of studding to attach things to. If you want to put firewood in the lower space, it seems what it was meant for. Guitar Hero is fun but it's not meant for... looking at. It comes with its own stand, but you're a grown-up. That means you know the difference between a game and what you decorate with. That's all.

We have one of these in our rental house too! Our TV actually sits in front of it because the room is so small there isn't much option for rearranging. But, we decoted ours. There are even doors on the front, but we decided to leave them open to avoid questions and to have fun with the space! You can see what we did with ours here:
http://makemineeclectic.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/end-of-house-tour-the-living-room/
Ours changes frequently. We would also like to paint inside of there and maybe add some lights. Have fun with it!

I would mount a mantel all the way across, which will overlap the opening slightly. Then I would lean / mount a large mirror over that opening. You could always hide yr money in the space:)
Balance the large mirror with a tall vase, picture, etc, on the other side of the mantel.
The open space beneath is strange as well, but you could stack firewood inside (which is probably what it was built for)--that's a trendy thing I've seen in magazines anyway.
Besides that, (I'm afraid to say) I would repaint, lose those curtains, and generally de-clutter. Good lucK!

Definitely don't cover them, this is a wonderful opportunity to make the wall interesting! Fill the lower one with nice logs. Get a long mantel that reaches all the way across - this will pull the space together. The upper one can house whatever interesting objects you posses. On the wall next to it, hang a picture with the same theme (i.e., if you have a collection of shells in the alcove, hang a picture of a sea creature). This will create a beautiful threedimensional effect.

I personally would display my leather bound books and a 17th century painting of a man working in a library.

You do not want to store your wine next to the fire place. That area will be too warm for the wine. (Looks nice, though.)

I would paint your walls and alcoves a darker color and just put a large vase in the alcove

I think I would put in some mellow lights, and the guitar, right in the middle of it. To balance it out, I would also put a large painting on the right side, like Melanie suggested.

Like a simple large music note or chord, or something to do with music.

filling them with split fire wood would be the most cost effective, but I would hang something with substance to the right, over the fireplace, to balance the wall out out if you keep the alcoves, regardless of what you use them for.

I would suggest kind of a combination of everyone else's suggestions. I think each alcove is a lovely feature on its own, but having two of them just looks like holes in your walls.

So I would suggest covering over the lower, small alcove and turning the upper one into the focal point that the fireplace as a whole currently isn't.

You can do this by painting the alcove a strong colour, like a deep art deco pink, or a midnight blue, then fitting it with glass shelves and putting decorative objects on the shelves effectively using it as the mantlepiece you're missing.

Also, please either remove your two tiny pictures to the right of the large alcove and leave the wall completely blank, or else add a lot more small pictures, or fill the space with something big (even a mirror, if you have something nice to be reflected in it).

Two thoughts:
* create a personal alter or sacred space. If that was my place I'd paint the alcove, put my buddha on a pedestal, and add an orchid in the background.
* cupboard doors, with sliced discs of really nice firewood on the front, so it looks like you've got firewood stacked for the fireplace but really have secret storage. It's easier than you think... you just need a flat panel (MDF or plywood work fine if you're painting it), then some really nice pieces of firewood (aspen isn't for burning but makes a beautiful choice decoratively for this project), and a hand or power miter saw (with a stop marked so you get consistent cuts), and you're in business... just slice the logs at least 1-1/2" thick (helps with any bark tearout problems) and glue them to the front of the door as though they're stacked logs.

kelleyk is right about the wine being too near the fireplace - you'd either have to do a rolling cart as other have suggested (which makes sense for getting to the gas switch), or fill it up with pretty logs, like in this picture from Domino (RIP):

http://www.dominomag.com/images/galleries/objects/gasl_fireplace_02.jpg

I would paint the insides of both alcoves a contrasting color taken from the NEW piece of art work that replaces the two small pieces over the fireplace. I'd pick something roughly half the height of the big alcove and about three fireplace tiles wide, give or take. Hang centered in the space over the fireplace or a bit on the low side.

So say you pick a contemporary landscape with a lot of green. You could paint the alcoves green, too. (The point being that the colors should relate.)

In the big alcove, I'd put something 3 dimensional that uses a fair amount of the space -- perhaps a sculpture or a 3-d wall piece (a metal branch or something, maybe) or else one to three large vases of related design but different heights, possibly holding flowering branches or a manzanita branch.

In the smaller alcove, I'd put something DIFFERENT from the big one. Either stacked hand split (triangular shaped from the end) firewood or something you did not use above -- like one tall narrow vase (saw a great one at Home Goods yesterday!) if you didn't use vases above.

I'd put a single floating shelf starting just outside the alcoves near the window and running to just past the outer edge of the fireplace, but I would put nothing on it except maybe a single small floral arrangement at the outer edge or maybe a pillar candle or two -- something very plain.

Could you narrow the top alcove to the size of the bottom one and then paint or decorate?