The Edwardian fireplace is the correct proportion and age for the house. Hard to tell if it is actually original to the house or if it is Mahogany or Oak, but don't paint it. Wood has a beauty of its own if treated with a natural finish like Beeswax and the patina of age adds to the beauty. Certainly don't varnish it. One of the reasons it appears heavy in the photo is the oak surround on the hearth tiles. My advice would be to remove the wood hearth surround and install a wood floor in the room (perhaps oak and slightly lighter in colour than the fireplace butting up to the tiled hearth). This will will compliment the fireplace and ground it. You could remove the tiles (normally I would keep original tiles) but the cream and maroon colours in this instance do give an overall heaviness and don't particularly enhance the fireplace, however I would leave the tiles for the moment. The finished scheme should look classy and elegant with a neutral colour palette. If this is going to be a working fireplace than you may consider a grey slate hearth. This is the focal point of your room so getting it right is key. Wherever possible conserve original features. The 1930's fireplace on the opposite side would appear original and most likely installed in the 30's. It is charming but not proportionally correct for an Edwardian house. But because it tells a story and is original I would be loath to remove it. Selling it on would be tricky as the tiles will most likely damage when removing them. I would keep both fireplaces as they will both sit well in a neutral colour scheme with a wooden floor.

Hi, if you ar worried about painting it then you could white wash the brickwork to take the colour down a bit. See here http://www.younghouselove.com/2013/08/how-to-whitewash-brick/ Then you could replace the narrow mantle with a more substantial piece of wood, and replace the hearth with a stone hearth. Best of luck, Kim

Personally I would remove it, if budget allows. It looks very 80’s and doesn’t really have any period charm to it. If you are removing the floor tiles and redoing the floor, why leave the bricks? We had a similar fireplace in our house, but eventually removed it, opened up the fireplace and fitted a new surround. I now have a fireplace that I love. Here’s a picture of the end result, sorry it’s a Christmas pic but it’s all I had!

We inherited a supposed "dual fuel" stove with our house. We have had it swept and maintained properly, but it was pointed out that the lining of the chimney was not of the required standard for dual fuel - only for wood !! It had been done 'on the cheap' ... We decided to use it instead of central heating if/when we were both at home, and opened the doors on the ground floor so heat could circulate. It does a good job of that ! We started off burning wood, but soon realised that it had to bve 'fed' almost every couple of hours - wood burns through very quickly. We've used coal recently, and find that much better, as it only needs making up a couple of times during the day. It's OK as long as we don't mix fuel, apparently. We know it's probably not the best environmentally, but couldn't afford to put in something like a heat source pump.