White Hot....I can't take it anymore

I'm not a particularly impulsive person. However, Wednesday night, almost as soon as I finished dinner, I decided to grab some paint and a brush and go to town on this pretty young thang:
For whatever reason, when my husband and I were deciding at our design appointment what finish to use on all the wood, we didn't consider to change the fireplace mantle from the standard oak finish. It wouldn't have cost us a dime to have it stained in the darker finish we used on the banister:

It was pretty dumb on our part not to think of it, or not to realize that even if we were going to change it eventually, in the interim it would be nice to have matching wood tones. But...what can we do about it now?

Well, we could do this:

And after a coat of primer, 2.5 coats of latex paint and 2 coats of poly, turn it into this:

Hubs and I both love it, and love how it makes the room that much more cohesive. It matches the trim really well, lightens the room and reduces the smorgasbord of wood tones in that room by 1 lone glaring colour. We do acknowledge the 2 big black holes that are that much more emphasized now though, but hope it's not too distracting, or that we can somehow balance it out.

My Opa's probably rolling in his grave at the fact that I painted over wood though. Sorry Op's---all's fair in home decor.

What do you think? Was it sacrilegious to paint over it, or was it worth it for the after effect?