Hey! We have a covered terrace off of our family room. It faces east. I was petrified of the room being dark, so our builder suggested skylights even though he thought it would be fine without them. We had them installed, and I do think they make the porch more "sunshiny." :) However, I think several other factors contribute to our kitchen, breakfast room, great room being light-filled much moreso than the skylights. First, even though our ceiling in the kitchen/great room is a standard 10' ceiling (no vault) the foyer which leads into the family is 2 story. It has a large window at the top, and our double front doors are 3/4 glass. Sunlight pours into the great room in the afternoon from them. Also, the study and formal dining room have cased openings that open into the back of the house. Finally, we have large windows in the breakfast room, kitchen, and my little office. These are south facing windows (and west, my office has windows on 2 walls.) plus, 3 glass doors to terrace. I think, looking at your plan, you'd be ok. Personally, I'd move that fireplace out of that corner and onto that left wall, then put in another set of doors or windows, but that is just a balance thing for me, probably not necessary for light. If you do get skylights, we haven't had any problem with them. The window cleaning company we use just charges them as another window. We could also easily access them ourselves from upstairs windows onto the porch roof. They really weren't that expensive, maybe $600 each? (or total, I can't remember, we have 2.) here are some pics: Back of house, showing terrace and roof Here is one skylight. Oh, and we painted the tongue and groove ceiling blue, which helps, too.

Your sketch (or your builder's) has three separate, individual and unrelated elements: the walls, the fireplace and the casework for the TV. Nothing dominates--everything competes visually. Dominance is one principle for good design. Cpartist's sketch is much more unified: fireplace and casework are unified together and dominate the wall, leaving only a small portion of the wall visible. For increased dominance and unity, you might consider some type of fascia or crown molding which is in keeping with your house architecture. You could align it and run it full-width, across the top of the door and all casework. An option for the heavy-appearing masonry above the mantle would be to use wood paneling, finished to match your casework. In choosing your design and finishes don't forget to coordinate the door and frame to the left, if there is one. As for the TV, I'm not sure how far away the kitchen actually is from the TV location, but even if you can adequately see the video, I'm not sure you will be able to hear the audio, unless you have wired speakers in the kitchen. What are the chances of a well located and designed TV in the kitchen--perhaps a flip down flat screen under an upper cabinet? Good luck with your project.

I'll get the ball rolling. I don't think you need to do much to change what you have, because you've done a beautiful job already. Here are a few suggestions just to add in some color. I worked off the little bit of color you already have in the rooms.

If you installed it replacing the window, then you could turn your sectional around to the opposite end of the room and it would work where the tv presently is and have a nice view of the new fireplace. Move your furniture around now and imagine the fireplace there. See if it works.