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Brie Williams

50 Fireplace Ideas for a Cozy Upgrade

Your hearth is the key to the coziest living room ever.

By Madoline MarkhamUpdated: Aug 22, 2024

Does anything make a living room cozier than a fireplace, roaring with a fire on crisp days and creating a decorative focal point every day? Here, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite fireplace ideas to inspire the design of one in your own home, present or future. Whether you are going for a modern, traditional, or rustic look, you’ll find beautiful room photos to spark ideas for your own design.

When planning a new fireplace there are countless elements to consider: what material? how tall? does it reside indoors or out? what about the mantel? do you plan to hang art or TV above? We have inspiration below to help you decide it all! If you are wanting to update an existing fireplace, the easiest way to bring some new life is with a bit of paint (may we suggest one of our all-time favorite paint colors?), or by swapping out the mantel decor for every season (check out our fall and Christmas mantel decorations for ideas).

For more inspiration about decorating your living room:

Moss Rock Fireplace

Marta Xochilt Perez

Rustic moss rock not only surrounds the fireplace in this Minnesota lake cottage but also lines the entire wall, with the mantel shelf stretching the width of it. Music is the focal point of the built-in shelves on the left with a vintage vinyl collection on display (and a disguised speaker above the television!).

Wood Paneled Fireplace

living room with wood paneled walls and two green sofas

Becky Luigart-Stayner, styling by Matthew Gleason

When wood paneling is this handsome, resist the urge to paint over it either on or around the fireplace. “It’s as if the paneled walls were color-matched to a bottle of bourbon,” says Country Living Editor-in-Chief Rachel Hardage Barrett of the walls in her Mississippi hunting lodge. A black-and-gold mirror above the mantel brings even more elevated country sophistication to this gathering space.

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Painted Blue Brick Fireplace

1910 bungalow with a cozy blue and wood living room

Nick Johnson

This watery blue hue is the perfect complement to the rustic wood paneling in this circa-1920 bungalow. Plus now it’s a dynamic focal point in this cozy family room. “Originally, we wanted to restore the brick, but it starting bleeding red because of some weird finish applied in years past. We had no choice but to paint it, which ended up helping tie the whole room together,” says designer Erica Harrison of Detroit-based design firm Hudson and Sterling.

Get the Look:
Fireplace Paint Color: Philipsburg Blue by Benjamin Moore

Federal-Style Dining Room Fireplace

cape cod style dining room with timber beams and a cream painted wood fireplace mantel

DANE TASHIMA

This fireplace’s Federal-style mantel was reconstructed to mirror the one in the living room in this Cape Cod cottage. A rustic timber ceiling beam and reclaimed heart-pine floorboards complement it to make for a warm and inviting dining room.

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Spanish Mission-Style Fireplace

white living room with spanish style fireplace and two blue chesterfield sofas

Max Kim-Bee

The focal point of this pretty living room is the white Spanish mission-style fireplace painted the same white as the walls. An old-world oil painting warms up the minimalist design, and layered rugs and large-scale blue Chesterfield sofas warm up the room.

Stone Outdoor Fireplace

stone fireplace with adirondack chairs on a back deck

Brie Williams

A large freestanding stone fireplace creates a cozy seating area by the lake, with its base higher off the deck to provide optional extra seating in addition to a collection of Adirondack chairs repainted in a dark green.

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Rusted Red Tile Fireplace

a living room with navy blue walls and green and red and yellow furniture and accessories

Adam Albright, styling by Kelly Ryan Kegans

Glossy rusted red tiles surround this great room fireplace, where a prized velvet ship painting (a current collecting obsession of homeowner) sails above the wood mantel.

Get the Look:
Fireplace Tiles: Fireclay Tile

Blue-Green Wood Fireplace

family room with blueish gray walls, a big fireplace, bright green velvet curved sofa

ALI HARPER

The star of this living space is blue-green hue not only on the fireplace mantel but also the planked walls and trim, all echoing the home’s waterfront surroundings. The room’s moody palette extends into the custom curved sofa upholstered in greenish-gold performance velvet along with spice-toned block prints and stripes.

Get the Look:
Wall & Fireplace Paint Color: Pigeon by Farrow & Ball

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Salvaged Barnwood Fireplace

a living room with a fireplace wrapped in barnwood

Brian Woodcock, styling by Heather Bullard

This fireplace facade is wrapped in reclaimed barnwood for a modern farmhouse look. The homeowners also fashioned simple and clean-lined shelves next to the fireplace out of floor joists from an old building.

Breakfast Nook Fireplace

a hunky stone fireplace and wall with a low table and benches in front

Chaunté Vaughn

Designer Meta Coleman reimagined this existing hunky stone fireplace nook as an intimate gathering area by adding a low rattan table and built-in benches topped with durable cushions. A slurry coat of limewash subtly softened the fireplace’s existing dark stone.

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Dark Green Bedroom Fireplace

bedroom with a dark green fireplace mantel

Read McKendree

The fireplace mantel of this Cape Cod cottage bedroom mantel was painted dark green and then finished off with a whimsical twinkle with several brass stars. An antique model ship is moored on the mantel as a reference to the home’s coastal location.

Expansive Fieldstone Wall Fireplace

living room with a fieldstone wall and fireplace with a hunky wood mantel

Helen Norman

The fieldstone of this new-build farmhouse fireplace’s surround/wall/ledge was sourced primarily from Pennsylvania and Maryland. A hunky beam reclaimed from a historic log cabin serves as the mantel, which is topped with an antique iron gate, antlers, and crockery.

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White Brick Fireplace

rustic neutral living room with layers of texture like rugs and velvet and baskets

Lincoln Barbour

This simple white brick fireplace invites plenty of other textures to be layered in the living room, from the worn ceiling beams (salvaged from an old warehouse) to the tufted velvet armchairs to the layered rugs.

Get the Look:
Wall and Fireplace Paint Color: White Dove by Benjamin Moore

Painted Wood Surround Fireplace

blue living room with matching mantel and built in storage framing a brick fireplace

Brie Williams

In the living room of their Dutch Colonial–style home, Victoria and Marcus Ford transformed a tired brick fireplace into a luxe library-insprired built-in wall by having it framed with a wood surround, striking floor-to-ceiling firewood storage nooks, and open shelving—all painted the same sophisticated blue as the room’s walls. The mantel decor, including a model ship, a gold-framed ship painting, and a carved sea captain, complements the water-themed palette.

Get the Look:
Trim and Fireplace Paint Color: Endless Sea by Sherwin-Williams

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Rustic Stone Fireplace

wisconsin northwoods cabin living room with stone fireplace

Marta Xochilt Perez

The focal point of this Wisconsin cabin’s living room is the roaring fire in its massive stone fireplace. Its stone ledge makes the perfect nesting spot for decor like pumpkins, candlesticks, and a vase.

Painted Stone Fireplace

rustic white stone fireplace idea with folk art landscape painting, small fish plaque, collection of stones for mantel decor

Maura McEvoy

A coat of white paint brightens up the stone fireplace in Kathleen Hackett’s cozy cabin in Camden, Maine. She also painted the cabin’s original brown paneling a brightening white, but with just one coat so the pine knotholes would remain visible, retaining the rustic camp vibe.

Get the Look:
Fireplace Paint Color: Simply White by Benjamin Moore

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Glossy Black Fireplace

brick fireplace with glossy black painted wood surround, framed modern art and flowers in vintage vases decorate mantel

Annie Schlechter

Ebony accents anchor a space within singer-songwriter Holly Williams’ Tennessee home, starting with the brick fireplace is surrounded by a wood mantel painted dark black.

Get the Look:
Mantel Paint Color: Black Blue by Farrow & Ball
Art: Chris Coleman Art

Two-Sided Stone Fireplace

Lucy Call

The more spots to gather ’round the fire, the better! This Harlowton Moss Rock fireplace creates a cozy spot on the large screened-in porch that overlooks the Sawtooth Mountain Range and, on the other side, towers 28 feet tall in the living room of the rustic Idaho retreat.

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Checkered Fireplace

a white living room with a fireplace and rustic beach house finishes

Roger Davies

This simple white fireplace gets its subtle pizzaz from the neutral colored checkerboard design of its surround. It pairs well with the weathered antique wood coffee table, linen slipcovered sofa and swivel chairs, and thick sisal rug.

Get the Look:
Wall Paint Color: Simply White by Benjamin Moore

Brick Fireplace

a cozy living room with a fireplace and wood paneled walls painted white

Helen Norman

For Amy Whyte, the homeowner of this Virginia cottage, her favorite part of the living room is the brick fireplace, with its unique cast-iron grate. “Its backplate has a fox on it,” she says. “It was like a little surprise tucked beyond the hearth.” That fox inspired woodland motifs throughout the house like the oil painting above the mantel.