Is the interior of your fireplace in good working order?

i think more details are needed. What's the rest of the room like? Is the fireplace centered on the room? What furniture do you have already? Is there much natural light? Will you be entertaining often and need a formal space or would a casual dining room be more accurate?

Can't go wrong with tile

What WON'T you do? More input, please.

tile

I agree with others. We need more detail, otherwise we'll be throwing out suggestions that might not even apply.

You say it's the dining room, so here are some questions to start:

What kind of furniture do you have in the dining room?

How kid-friendly do you want this to be?

Does the fireplace work and will you be using it?

What kind of look are you going for here? (Spanish, Moroccan, traditional American, etc.)

How large is the room?

What style is the rest of the home?

Here's what I did with a similar fireplace:

http://www.ikeahackers.net/2011/04/fireplace-frump-to-fab.html

What *spanky* did. Gorgeous and brilliant.

I agree that more detail is needed regarding the rest of your home's design scheme. But I'm so into subway tiles these days (as many of us are) I would do a colored (depending on the color scheme of your home) subway tile...yeah. All over, or maybe just a trim...

oooohh, but I like Spanky's idea too!!

Hi Everyone
Thanks for your feedback. The problem is that the wall is only 61" wide with a 7"wall on the left side and a 6.5" on the right side. All the fireplaces we looked at seem too big for the space. We are planning to use this for our dining room. It is good sized room with 3 sets of 3 windows and a door out to the deck. The wall color is going to be a deep coffee color. Our furniture is dark dark brown and we will be putting carpet in the room. The fireplace does work and we will plan to use it.
We are thinking tile...or maybe stone. the rest of our home is pretty classic with alot of warm neutral tones.
This is the last room in our 18month long home reno so we are starting to lack design ideas...

Wow, Spanky's fireplace looks great

@Eimear - I'm not sure I follow.

You say "All the fireplaces we looked at seem too big for the space." What fireplaces were you looking at? The fireplace is the wood-burning unit. When you see tiles, bricks, etc. that frame it, that's not the fireplace itself.

If you are keeping the fireplace, you don't need to buy anything that is pre-made to fit it. Fireplaces come in all shapes and sizes. I'd use subway tiles and that way, you can control how far you want them to go.

Hi Pi,
Sorry for the confusion, we originally wanted to put a full mantle and surround in white wood around the firebox. As the wall is only 61" wide i think the surround is going to appear to be too big. We really are leaning towards stone for the whole wall area and leave it without a mantle.

@Eimear - stone would be fantastic. Depending on how dramatic you wanted the look to be, you could do a really bright white stone (think Greece). It would contrast with the coffee color you picked for the walls and would be really eye catching.

This is personal preference, but I would skip the mantle, leave the walls around the hood white and focus on a really nice bespoke trim around the grate proper, either restoring the brass or if that doesn't fit, get some really nice art tiles in the Victorian or art nouveau style. In the UK they also have these artfully wrought black surrounds that housekeepers used to polish and oddly enough they look really nice!

Overdoing the fireplace area could unbalance the room. Really depends on what your room is like overall.

580sqftofbliss - I think you mean a 'combination fireplace' like these;

http://www.lewis-furniture.co.uk/fireplaces/cast-iron-fireplaces.asp

They're popular over here, especially amongst people restoring old houses and you can buy repro ones very easily and reasonably inexpensively. Also, they come in very narrow sizes known as 'bedroom combinations' which might fit well in that space. Are they not available in the US ?

I totally agree with stone and leaving out mantle.. it would look absolutely amazing. You can add a floating shelf if you want something to put stuff on, or just hang an appropriately sized picture or mirror, or if you get enough light in the room, a vertical garden. I love your fireplace!

look at image 12 on this page -
http://www.mastercastfireplaces.com/fireplace-photogallery-interior.php
you can make a frame around the fireplace, but keep it almost flush with the wall - i agree you dont need a large mantle/shelf.
I also like the herringbone tile inside the firebox - how sweet!

I would really consider speaking with an interior designer on this one since it would seem this is going to be an expensive project. There really still isn't all that much for us to go on here and they can take the whole of your house into consideration or get something custom for you if that is what you need.