The family room is a casual, relaxed living space that should be defined by spending quality time with your friends and loved ones.
For centuries, fireplaces have been a central element in the home where people come together for warmth and light. For family room ideas, embracing and enhancing the fireplace in your designated family space will help create a cozy and inviting environment for the whole family to enjoy.
A key area of focus in a room, using our family room ideas with fireplaces can help you effortlessly integrate and make the most of this architectural element in your family room design.
Ideas for a family room with fireplaces
Whether you want to embellish your living room fireplace with wallpaper, or use a luxurious marble frame to add a touch of sophisticated elegance, we’ve rounded up our top tips to help you with your fireplace family room ideas.
1. Paint your fireplace to match your walls
(Image credit: Ti Archive)
A great tip for family room paint ideas and an easy way to add a colorful contemporary twist to your living room fireplace. Using paint to incorporate the fireplace into your scheme makes for a bold, cohesive design.
In this family room, the beautiful red-pink hue makes for a striking design. Painting the fireplace the same shade takes the colorful impact one step further and brings the original feature to life.
Whether you choose to match your fireplace with the same paint color used in your living room, or choose a different complementary paint shade, you can make a real statement from your fireplace with paint ideas.
2. Center your schedule around the fireplace
Credit: Paul Raeside
Centering your family room schedule and ideas around your fireplace is a simple design principle, but one that’s guaranteed to create a cozy and intimate family room space.
The fireplace is one of the central gathering places in the home, providing warmth and a space to sit and socialize with friends and family.
“Fireplaces are often the main focal point in a room, so centering your scheme and your main seating area around the fireplace creates a natural, balanced design that makes the most of this timeless architectural feature,” says Homes & Gardens editor-in-chief. Lucy Sear.
3. Embrace a modern fireplace design
Credit: Alice Lane Interior Design, photography by Nicole Gerulat
Whether you’re upgrading your traditional fireplace ideas, or installing a new fireplace in a modern property for your family fireplace room ideas, choosing a contemporary design can make a real statement in a room.
In this family room from Alice Lane Interior Design (opens in new tab)the custom fireplace is characterized by a unique, framed design.
Alice Lane states: ‘The design of the family room started with the design of the fireplace and the choice of carpet. The customer likes to snuggle around the fireplace during the cold winters and want to build in storage for the cut logs.”
The rectangular frame with white panels provides a truly contemporary function, with the large, blocked-out design matching the style and proportions of the family room.
4. Create contrast
Credit: Davide Lovatti
A fireplace can provide a great space where you can inject a contrasting element into your living room, enhancing its function as a central focal point in a room.
In this beautiful living space, the luxurious black marble provides a dramatic feature of the fireplace and provides an elegant contrast to the gray painted walls and light palette used throughout the room. The use of this dark marble provides a real base for the fireplace in this space, with additional features such as the dark framed mirror and painted radiator enhancing this contrast element.
5. Make your fireplace discreet
Credit: Time Inc (UK) Ltd)
For a more minimalist look to your fireplace family room ideas, there are many modern fireplace designs available that make this traditional architectural element more of a discreet element rather than the main focal point in a room.
In this open-plan family room, both the TV and fireplace blend effortlessly into the black-painted wall – a bold and eye-catching design that ironically also works well to hide certain elements in the room. The low fireplace still provides an element of coziness and comfort, but in an understated and discreet way – a great tip to remember for family room TV ideas if you want your TV to be a discreet element in the room too .
6. Use wallpaper to beautify your fireplace
Credit: James Merrell
“The bosom and wall around the fireplace provide the perfect platform for wallpaper ideas,” said Jennifer Ebert, Digital Editor of Homes & Gardens.
A great way to add color and pattern to your living room, wallpaper is also an easy way to enhance a traditional fireplace with a contemporary style – perfect for living room fireplace ideas.
In this cozy family room, the wallpaper enhances the fireplace’s unique, asymmetrical design, creating a striking wall. The elegant wallpaper also softens the sleek built-in fireplace and adds an element of color and texture to the family room space.
7. Frame your fireplace
Credit: Alice Lane Interior Desgin, photography by Nicole Gerulat
When framing your fireplace, you can be both bold and subtle. Whether you’re building a custom wood surround for added texture and height, or using clever paint ideas to enhance an original design, using techniques to frame your fireplace will create an elegant, eye-catching feature in your living room.
In this large family room designed by Jessica Bennett of Alice Lane Interior Design (opens in new tab), she says, ‘we wanted this space to feel more dressed up and fashionable. We have started designing the new fireplace surround, which creates drama and gives the room more height.’
The large frame for this fireplace is a perfect match for the height and grandeur of this space, with the soft cream paint complementing the textured brickwork and natural palette used throughout the room.
8. Create an Off-Center, Unexpected Fireplace
Credit: Rachel Smith
Traditionally, fireplaces are placed in the center of a wall, but to create a unique, unexpected design for family room ideas with fireplaces, you can opt for an off-center fireplace design.
Great for small family rooms where space is limited, being more flexible with the position of your fireplace can make more room and space for storage and seating elements.
In this family room, a custom wood unit houses the fireplace in the corner. The design fits perfectly into this display and storage unit, balanced by other items such as the TV and decorative accessories. The marble frame adds a luxurious touch and gives the fireplace a prominent place, while tying the function together with the rest of the scheme.
Combining the furniture ideas of your family room with the placement of your fireplace, you can make a unique, stylish design statement in a room.
9. Choose a luxurious marble design
Credit: Brent Darby
Durable, durable and extraordinarily beautiful marble fireplaces gained popularity and were a typical design feature in large houses of the Georgian era.
Luxurious and timeless, today the use of marble can be integrated into homes of all styles, adding both a decorative touch and a practical frame to your fireplace.
The white and gray marble used for the fireplace in this family room contrasts beautifully with the blue painted walls. With the marble top on the metal coffee table creating an elegant connection and amplifying the use of this material, the overall glamorous design embodies a unique blend of old and new.
10. Use your fireplace as a platform for decorative designs
(Image credit: Ti Archive)
A mantel creates an inviting platform where you can get creative with decorative designs and create unique displays of objects and ornaments.
‘Mirrors are a very popular decorative item and are often placed on or above fireplaces. Mirrors can easily fill an empty wall while enhancing the sense of light and space in a room,” said Sarah Spiteri, editor-in-chief of Homes & Gardens.
The family room is also a space that should reflect your family’s identity and style, so using the fireplace to display photos and personal items with lots of memories and stories ultimately creates a unique design that evokes joy for the whole family. family.
How do you style a family room with a fireplace?
Having a fireplace in your living room not only provides a sophisticated centerpiece, but is also a great starting point when coming up with family room ideas, as you can easily arrange your seating and furniture around this architectural element.
A fireplace can make a family room cozy, warming and inviting. Styling your family room ideas with fireplaces should be about creating a captivating space where you can sit around this feature and relax with friends and family.
By reading the tips we’ve outlined in this article, you can get the most out of your living room fireplace and create a design that’s long-lasting and tailor-made for your living room.
How do I update my family fireplace?
A quick and easy way to update a fireplace in a family room is to use paint ideas. From painting the surround to creating a colorful wall around a traditional fireplace design, you can effortlessly refresh the fireplace with color and pattern.
Another way to update the fireplace in the family room is to build a custom frame and mantel. From traditional wooden designs to modern geometric shapes, you can choose an updated design that enhances the design scheme in your home and family room.