Give me your thoughts on lightening up my living room!

[Nicole A.]

Hi everyone!

This is my *personal* home...not a rental. 

I live in a contemporary-style Cedar home. We have updated it a lot over the years and now I'm beginning on my living room.

The living room has a cathedral ceiling and you can look down on the room as you enter the home. It is about 5 steps lower than the rest of the main floor.

I want to lighten it up by painting the brick. At least for now, I want to leave the cedar wall alone at its natural color. I'm not sure that I would want to even paint it, which is why I want to just start with the bricks.

The ceiling is also natural cedar color and I do not ever plan to paint that!

Question is, do I paint the brick a shade of white similar to the drywall to its right? Or a very light shade of grey or something? With white drywall to its right and brown cedar to its left, I'm not sure the best color to choose.

The first photo shows the fireplace with cedar and drywall.

The second photo just shows another view from standing in the living room to show how it's open to the main floor above.

Unrelated, I also plan to rid of those built-in seats.