First of all, I think there is nothing lovlier than a beautiful Christmas tree in a bay window!

I would do the same casing on all the windows- otherwise I just think it would look strange. So, that would mean treating all the windows as separate and not trying to tie them together. Are they going to have aprons under the stool?

If it were me, I would bring the bookshelves on either side all the way to the ceiling, and yes, I would invest in crown moldling to tie the bookshelves visually to the wall and extend the crown across the windows to the other bookshelf. And go around the room if at all possible. Can you or your husband do this to save money? We just bought crown molding for $1.49 per linear foot at HD (3 5/8" painted) I just noticed your trim needs to be stain grade, so it would be more expensive for you...)

I would not extend the bookshelf under the bay, and I personally would want to keep the floor area by the bays open.

I hope I am not breaking etiquette by mentioning this, but I think the light fixture you have in front of the windows is very modern and is not in keeping with the room. I think a more traditional fixture, even a small chandy might be nice. Please don't be offended....

Good luck on your home, I think it is going to be wonderful!

i'm morph it back into what you originnaly wanted and put the window seat with the built ins around it..if you want to use only crown on the built ins..that works fine..then it looks like a piece of furniture..no problem there..
put the window seat in between the built ins and move in a round dining table wiht a coulple of chairs..and then move out the table for the tree at the holidays, or put the tree on the table, just make it a shorter wide tree.

move the upholstered furniture somewhere else for a nice grouping..and leave the bay for what your dreams intended

Thanks for comments, we are doing oak crown on the top of the kitchen cabinets (other end of this 37 ft long room) and rest of woodwork is pine so don't think we can do it everywhere (plus the expense - $2.50/lf at HD).

If we tie the stools together (that 1/4" off in depth and 2" distance apart really bugs me!) I'm not sure what we'd do with the apron - 1 or 3? The casing would be the same but only 1/4" wider so no one would really be able to tell they were different from the rest of the house - in fact, I have to use wider casing on doorways in kitchen b/c the door heights on cased openings didn't match the prehung door casings but if I wanted the same reveal I had to go wider (and builder told me I was seeing things).

As far as the light, I'm not crazy about it but we wanted something close to ceiling so out of the way of the tree. Box is actually in front of bay, not in it. And builder put in fan box, holes were not perpendicular to walls so couldn't hang a track like we have in kitchen (with smaller lights instead of pendants) as we originally planned b/c the 8 ft track would have been crooked. Don't want a round flushmount but chandy would be too low (8 ft ceilings). No ceiling fan b/c I think it would look strange (current ceiling fan is in line with track over kitchen island, slightly off from center of bay but other box is centered in front of that window). So the modern fixture with the curved arms hides the fact that it's not mounted square to the walls. Any suggestions (pictures!) for replacement light that fits all these requirements would be GREATLY appreciated. Oh, and we like that we can point the halogens where we want light instead of straight down.

ronbre - we were posting at the same time. I do have a (dark oak) 40" round Hitchcock table in the room with 4 chairs. Not sure if it would fit in the bay (plus the bay is a good 20 ft from the kitchen so would it look weird to have our "breakfast nook" there? There's also the question of what to do with the "nook" we have (pendant light can be removed but what to put in its place?) and how to arrange furniture to fit in the room and be able to walk to slider.

{{!gwi}}

We were supposed to put a woodstove between the double window and the slider, but bathroom window upstairs precludes chimney (something I didn't catch in the plans until it was $1000 change). My mom says we don't want the mess of a woodstove anyway, and I want to keep the bay the focal point.

So now this is turning into "What do I do with this room?" thread!