Maybe adding a couple of floating shelf's in order to place photo frames will work well. It will will add a home-warming feel, and a great visual scenery, considering you can change the photos in due time. Best of luck!

I also have a large log combustion heater in an old Queenslander. Unfortunately these ugly things were all the rage in the 80's, 90's. The later ones are a little easier in the eye.
Mine is larger than most and has an 8inch diameter flue so does not look like a box with a stick coming out the top.
Could be an idea to make a feature out of the flue.
Have you seen those open metal mesh flue surrounds? They are a bit..."old fashioned" and are usually brown enamel, and never extended up to the ceiling...so looked like a bit of an excuse for safety. If you do not have pone of these..get one and paint it with a metal/heat resistant paint in a metallic paint of another colour...mabe copper? Or something that matches things in the lounge room...that might help. Other than that...maybe have a shiny chrome or stainless steel flue surround especially made...or get a plumber in to replace the flu with a stainless steel one or even a lighter colour enamel one if you can find such a thing these days.. I bought one that was meant for a combustion cooker of the same era as my heater..it was a golden cream and tan and looked lovely in my timber-walled house.

Now for the wall behind the heater. These were usually made of something fireproof and unimaginative like bricks or tiles, were a real eyesore and dated a room terribly.
An alternative might be a curved screen of mini orb in aluminium. MIne looks really nice with the new stainless steel flue..( a chimney fire burnt the enamel one I had!). The trick with these boxy ugly heaters is to give them a re-paint occasionally. Fireproof enamels are available in different colours.
Hearth? Usually tiles or bricks and not pretty! A solution could be beaten copper or a simple stained timber frame on the floor in front of the heater filled with nice pebbles or even a couple of larger nice-looking ...or all large stones...all available from landscape places.
Another idea, since your heater is in a coener, could be to have a decorative metal screen made to curve around the frot of the whole heater.
These open fetwork screens seem to be a popular addition to rooms and set in dividing walls just for decoration. Such a decorative screen in front of the heater would not impede the flow of the warmth and you could have a woodbox in the same decorative metal near the heater. Such a screen would need to be moveable of course so you could put the wood in and clean out the ashes.
Hope this helps.

P.S...the problem with suggestions of putting things around the heater on the walls is the radiated heat...you have to be careful. As you see I have put up a panel of mini orb in aluminium behind the heater and the flu...its a requrement to have fireproofing on walls at the back of these heaters as you would know. The mini orb stands out from the wall fixed on to metal brackets...also for air circulation. The hurricane lamps on the wall on either side are for decoration but do work and are handy in a blackoutand being metal are not a problem with the radiated heat from the flue. That you can boil a kettle on top of these heaters so useful for an immediate hot drink in the winter and...the kettle can be for decoration...there are some really nice copper ones around. Mine is a very heavy old aluminium kettle from the 1950's. Polished up its a nice homey feature and it matches the mini orb, the flue and the hurricane lamps. These are my preference for decoration but I am sure you will be inspired with your own creative ideas to help your heater be more 'homey'. A really nice fluffy or brightly coloured mat in front of the hearth ( but not too close that the ashes and coals will fall on it) would create a cosy atmosphere...just for winter.
Happy decorating.
Good luck.

I too had an ugly combustion but I just finished transforming it