If you want to cut it down, cut it off at ground level and immediately paint the stump with some kind of brush/tree herbicide with 2,4-D in it. If it resprouts, girdle the new shoot and again paint the 2,4-D containing herbicide on it. Always use chemicals wisely and follow label directions. That stuff will kill other trees/shrubs if you get it on them. On the other hand, if you trim them up, they make a dandy tree in far west Texas where other trees won't make it. I don't think 9-10 feet from the foundation is close enough to hurt. I've had them closer than that.

LOL Carol, I do have a bridge at the north end..but it's still a trip...I don't know how my hubby commutes daily so far..but he does it and I'm grateful for the ability to stay on my Island. I have purchased at Costco in the past too, and yep it's Canadian.. (BTW, Costco is exactly 33 miles from their gas station to my front door, over 2 bridges, and 45 minutes on a good day. TJ's is another 40 plus minutes on a non existant traffic day down I5.) I was kinda wanting to see if there was a difference from Canadian and NE syrup. I think I need to call my brother, he's supposed to be heading to the NE this fall or winter. I'll beg him to send me some... :o) Yeah that's it...

How do you plan to use the room? Do you regularly work at home? Would you have clients in your home office? If you will use it a lot, you need to prioritize function, even if it is a bit at the expense of form. At work, where I get office visitors fairly often, I prefer to face the door. But I also want to face my monitor (you notice how offices in design magazines never seem to have to deal with normal office hardware?), and don't want it between me and any visitors. My desk is L-shaped, with the monitor in the corner and the keyboard on a keyboard tray. The door is at about a 30 degree angle to my right. I like the large artwork, but for me the smaller one is kind of meh. Based on the layout in your inspiration pics, the smaller one will be more in your field of view when you are working (on the side or front wall). Definitely get something that you will enjoy, not just something that serves the decor.

The longer rectangular box that is mostly painted over is a super-old Winegard TV distribution amplifier (as someone suggested above). Here is almost the exact same one, I'm pretty sure: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Winegard-DA-8150-82-Channel-Distribution-Amplifier/193941261031?hash=item2d27cccae7:g:SZEAAOSwxjZgRUNJ The other box that is completely painted, with the two connections at the top and power coming out of the bottom, I think is one of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/303839191777?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5338722076&toolid=10001 a pre-amp TV signal booster, effectively similar to the longer box. But, those boxes utilize coax cable-TV-style cable, and the intercom amplifier uses thinner, twisted pair wires that are orange red and black. The cable going into the antenna device in the closet appears to have a larger, heavier gauge wire with green, black, and red conductors....I would try to trace that specific cable as far as you can and see where it goes first. Were there any other kind of junction boxes underneath the house? The intercom amp appears to have a line coming into the DOOR input, one line going to the regular input and one line going to the output terminals, which would suggest that they likely just had one door speaker, and one inside speaker to communicate with the front door. If you had multiple intercom speakers throughout the house, typically you would have multiple wires going to those terminals, but I do believe those particular nutone systems could be "daisy-chained" as well, with one room station wired to the next, in a line, etc...so it is possible there could have been more. I am absolutely fascinated by what this thing in your closet could be! If it is, in fact, somehow wired into one or both of those two TV distribution amps, maybe it was some kind of project idea from Popular Electronics that utilized making your own antenna and using those amps to power it somehow, but I just can't imagine why you'd have it in a closet, it is so intriguing. The key-switch on the wall looks very common to many old alarm systems of the time, but typically you'd have other security system components around, like sensors on your doors/windows, and a siren mounted somewhere outside your house...It is also entirely possible that the TV distribution amp boxes underneath the house were not related to that antenna thing, but it seems like it would be too much of a coincidence, especially since someone wrote "closet" down there on the joist. This three-year-old mystery is so damn interesting! haha