Fireplaces, Heating Stoves, Flues and Chimneys - Fireplace (mantle) suggestions?

Hi,
The home we recently bought has a stone wall in living room with a small fireplace (30"h x 37"w). It isn't very deep & according to the previous occupants, didn't work well (smokey). It is pretty shallow as well & we bought the house knowing that the fireplace &/or flue may need repair/replacing. In addition, the fireplace door/screen unit will be replalced.

This past week I cleaned the wall (stone cleaner) & the wall looks better, although not all the soot came off. This wall is bare (no pictures, etc.) & I think we'd like to do something to it to make it more attractive. One of the things that may help is to build a mantle & wood frame of some sort. We just did our oak wood floors, so tieing in a wood mantle place may be nice.

So a couple of questions:
1. Based on the size of the unit, are their dimensions we should follow for building a mantle/frame around it? Being as small as it is I'm worried about what we can do. Any decorating ideas would be appreciated.

2. Although it would be a major task (I assume), is enlarging (& deepening) the fireplace advisable? If we are having flue work done anyhow, I'm wondering if that would be helpful.

Blown up drawing

http://www.azwoodman.com/mantles-kits.html

howto

http://www.ronhazelton.com/html/1_2a_how1.html

http://interiordec.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.diynet.com%2FDIY%2Farticle%2F0%2C2058%2C665%2C00.html

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/rm_fireplaces_installation/article/0,1797,HGTV_3702_1398216,00.html

There are some ideas.

As far as changing the fireplace and chimney, it seems to me that someone with at least the qualifications of a sweep or fireplace repairman should be consulted. There's a lot of weight on top of the fireplace.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for all the links! I'll study them in more detail in the next several days. My first impression is there are lots of things that could be done, however I am concerned that most ideas are built around a flat wall. My stone wall is certainly not flat, so I'd have to somehow compensate. Here's a picture:
http://home.earthlink.net/~memexweb/_uimages/Fireplace_01.jpg

Anyhow, thanks again!
Bob

Nice photo. It seems almost as if you should do something grand and a tad rustic with that big wall. Quite a canvas for a mantle project.

Keep us posted.

I found a couple of interesting things that had been done with fireplaces similar to yours.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.lauberge.com/images/Lodge-Fireplace.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lauberge.com/Rms_lodge.htm&h=294&w=250&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlodge%2Bfireplace%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.rapidslodge.com/images/lodgefireplace.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.rapidslodge.com/restaurant.html&h=298&w=200&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlodge%2Bfireplace%26start%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.allenscrowlakelodge.com/fireplacewiz.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.allenscrowlakelodge.com/fireplace.htm&h=350&w=524&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlodge%2Bfireplace%26start%3D320%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN

This may give you some ideas.

Hope this helps.

this sounds as if you should put a big railroad tie or some big thick piece of wood as just a cap or shelf. a mantel frame just won't look right.
as far as the smoking fire place you should look up the flue to make sure you can see a clear path with no restrictions. making the fireplace opening larger may make your problems worse. the flue must be 10 times bigger than the opening. with your opening the flue should be about a minimun of 10"x10".
depth 16"-20".

Thanks for the feedback, guys. This project has me vexed - while the suggestion about a thick piece of wood and some of the examples in the pictures make sense, the rest of the house is not rustic by any means. The house itself is small (1000 sq. ft. excluding the basement) in the suburbs. The furniture we own is more traditional, not casual. So the wall doesn't fit parts of the home. One idea that was thrown around in the family was to cover the wall with drywall & cut out the fireplace. That (most likely) will not happen.

Of the links that were posted of existing walls, I think I liked the following the best (blown up for viewing):
http://home.earthlink.net/~memexweb/_uimages/lodgefireplace.jpg

If I attempt something along these lines, any ideas on how to create a flat surface to attach the wood to? Or build a frame w/ gaps?

Again, I really appreciate your feedback!

Bob