Need some ideas

I started demolition on the basement alcove. You can see where I had the problems with clearance at the front. I plan on replacing those with steel studs. As I understood in a previous post, if the ceiling height is 7' or more it isn't considered an alcove. My problem is trying to hide the pipe at the top. I need some ideas. The bottom of the chimney pipe is about how high the tile will come down.


Here's some more pics

Yes, there will be a header.

Here some pics of what I went with. Construction is with all steel studs including header covered with cement board. I used the stud cavity as the spacing. In the pics you can see the bottom stud vent holes. I didn't use the cheapo studs from the box stores because I thought they might be to flimsy. I found them at a place that specializes in drywall supplies only. The cheap studs were 3 bucks and the good commercial ones were 6. Sheet metal is one of my old trades so it wasn't too hard to mate up the verticals on the header. I guess there's nothing much that will burn around the stove now. Next weekend we'll be installing the tile. No more arch.

Here's the finished project. I'm not too sure about the tile combination but it will work and is functional.