Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your votes and comments on the fireplace poll.  Tons of food for thought, though with ‘paint it white’ and ‘paint it and the walls toning colours’ running neck and neck, you’ve also confused me further.

Here’s where my thinking is heading so far, which is not very far.

I’m slightly reluctant to paint it white as there are already a lot of white-painted features in the room (bookshelves and wall panelling) and I feel the fireplace needs to be differentiated somehow.  And I know that once it’s painted white it will stay white.

At the moment my thinking on this room is headed in one of two ways.  To keep the basics of the room white or neutral, but then to furnish it with zingy, bright accessories as in this picture from the ever-inspirational Decor8 (though standing next to the fireplace all day wearing a tangerine minidress would surely get a bit boring after a while). In which case stripped (the fireplace, not me) as here, might be the best way to go.  However, I’ve never done neutral before, and am wondering if I’d get a bit bored of it, however zingy the accessories. Also I’m a bit apprehensive about horror stories I’ve heard about stripping back paint, am worried about lead paint with a little girl around and don’t think my bricks will be as pretty as those below.

Option two in my mind is to paint the whole thing a lovely soft celadon green with white trim as here (pic again from Decor8) and keep things a bit more muted. In which case the fireplace could either go white, or a perhaps a slightly darker soft sage green.

However, in the UK most of our fireplaces are white, so it would feel odd to paint it  another colour. (Am I right in thinking that most people who voted for ‘paint it a toning colour’ are from the US?)  The other problem here is the stained glass in yellow and raspberry, which I’m not sure will go at all (though maybe raspberry accents will help?)

Di and co, I hear you about changing the mantle.  However the current mantle is, I think, original, and has been been beautifully crafted to work with the raised brickwork on the fireplace, so I feel I ought to be respectful of it.

Adding some texture to the inserts would be lovely.  Does anyone know what sort of thing would have been added here originally?  I was assuming tile, but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of tiles having been applied.

Elizabeth, I know next to nothing about feng shui but am very willing to give it a go if it will make me happier and more prosperous!  This room is to the bottom left of the grid, with the East facing wall running along the bottom (the wall with the fireplace and stained glass faces South).  Any advice based on that?

Can you hear my confusion? I’m going to try and get my head round this over the next week or so and start getting a mood board together, at which point we’ll do another poll.  I also need to pull together the key inspiration pieces I want to use in this room. In the meantime. any further thoughts or suggestions would be very welcome.

Given that, unlike some, I don’t have a remote interior designer, I was wondering whether you guys would like to help out with the process of designing the new house.

So welcome to the first mirrormirror ‘interactive interior designer’ poll. 

Though I don’t promise to always act on your advice, I’m genuinely interested to hear what you think.  Please expand on your ideas if necessary in the comments box and if you want, let me know in the comments which country you’re from.  It will be fascinating to see if we get international differences of opinion.

 

NB. Option 4 is unlikely to be the right answer

 

 

Exhibit 1 is the bright red fireplace in the main sitting room, which has a large window facing east and smaller stained glass windows in yellow and faded red facing south.  The room is flooded with light in the morning and remains very light for most of the day. (By the way, we’re going to be discussing/dissing the wallcolour and the stove at a later date)

So, what would you do with the fireplace it if you were me? 

Look what splendour awaited us in our tiny ‘backyard’ when we returned from London.

 

This old cherry tree is immense, dominates the pocket handkerchief lawn and was looking astonishingly beautiful on the glorious Spring day which greeted us.

 

 

 

 

 

The previous owners also left us a very charming note bequeathing us their orchard ladder and cherry pitter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please forward all your favourite cherry recipes to yours truly – I think they’re going to be needed.