[rachaelnex]

Hi AV bods,

Inspired by the floating walls, conversions, et al that abound here in the avforums I have decided to do a couple o' tings to my front room.
Currently it has a fireplace in it - a working solid fuel one - which has a mantel shelf and a surround which is about a house brick's depth on it, but only under the mantel shelf. Basically someone's bricked a load of single depth house bricks onto the column to about mantel height and stuck a mental shelf on top (if that makes sense) to form a fascia. The fireplace opening itself is quite large for a room of this size (12'4" square with the addition of a large bay window in the wall ninety degrees to the right of the fireplace) - about three feet wide, and arched at the top, on a five feet or so chimney breast.
I like it - well the warmth it gives anyway - but ye gods, it dominates the room ! And it's cold in the winter if you can't be arsed to make a fire, difficult to clean and I've nearly set fire to the laminate floor once or twice whilst poking things in the fire ... my fiance was not impressed and all the dogs started barking and trying to drag me to safety. (Alright, that's exaggerating but there have been some ... er... smuts shall we say, on the floor).

So, the mantel is coming off, the brick's worth of facing under it is coming off, and the fireplace opening is being bricked up with a view to mounting my tv on it. Currently I have a 32" Philips but I have budgeted for maybe an LG 50PC55 or similar.
I can't rip the whole chimney breast out as it is a shared chimney with next door and I don't think they'd be happy.
Sadly three walls in the room have horrible cake icing artex on them, but I don't have the skills or the money to get shot of it so it has to stay (I'd rather have an AV gadget than pay someone to rip the artex off - much less stressful !) The wall opposite to the fireplace is the only unartexed one !

Anyway - my question is thus.
The rest of the room is painted good ole magnolia. I like this as it's simple. But I am considering painting some bits of the room to form features - a dark shade of red. All the other decor accents (oooh, that's a girlie phrase !) in the room are red (including my hair -- and my bank statement by the time I have finished this lot no doubt, lol.)
As the room is almost square but not huge, what do people think would be the best idea - Red bits as in the first attached photo, or as in the second (excuse my weak google sketchups - I'm not great with it but it's fun) ? I am considering doing the opposite wall too - I have a three seater sofa along that wall.

Thanks for the opinions even though this is technically a decor question rather than a DIY HT one.

Rachael

[gpl1968]

I would paint the whole wall. Personally, I would find large vertical stripes distracting when watching the tv.

Regarding your artex problem, it is easily removed with a steam wallpaper stripper and a decent scraper. Treat it just like wallpaper.

[rachaelnex]

Hmm, hadn't considered the whole wall to be honest - ta. Google Sketchup here we come ...

As for steaming the artex off - in my experience that makes a mess like you've never seen and takes until the end of time, and is nigh on impossible on stuff this thick (some of the peaks are two cm proud of the rest of it, to give you an idea).
I can live with it. I've got used to it after two years of living here.