Haha I wish I could block the fireplace - that'd solve the problem for sure!

I've gotten a couple of suggestions from /r/hometheater, and I was hoping to get your opinion as well.

I was recently gifted this receiver and was thinking of building around it, but it seems that it might be worth upgrading (to something like the Denon AVR-X1000). Then, for the speakers, I'm honing in on:

These Martin Logans with a center

OR

These Fluances with their center

One poster mentioned that the Fluances might work better because they are front ported and I'm going to mount on the wall. The price savings is definitely attractive, and if I can get away with a 3.0 system, I'd be happy to do so. I know you've looked at a lot of Fluance's stuff - any thoughts as to whether those speakers would adequately fill the room (and without a separate sub)?