I wanted to post some after photos and thank everyone who took the time to comment. It turns out that the wall was "indented" when we removed the chair rail so my DH has spent several weekends to build it back up with joint compound and texture it to blend in with the walls. It was a painfully tedious process (first trying to do it by hand, then with a sponge, then with spray-on compound that dribbled everywhere, and finally with a trowel lightly loading dabs of compound on). If you look closely you can still tell, but it's not as glaring as it was several iterations ago. Suffice to say, we are thrilled to be done with sanding, priming, texturing, and painting! Now, I need to figure out what wall decor to put up as the removal of the chair rail makes it a much easier space to deal with! Any and all advice would be appreciated. I was thinking of doing a photo gallery near the front entry, but that is a HUGE wall and I don't know that I can put photos high enough where you can still see them but not so low that the wall looks off-balance. Forgive the quality of the photos, taken without a flash on my iPhone.

Thank you for the response! Didn't get a notification from Houzz so just saw it. If I did an arch top opening, how would I do the rest of the hallway? I don't want to make it a barrel vault for the entire length of the hallway. Would it look too broken up if the hallway ceiling started flat and then have the arched top opening at the end right before the vestibule? What would the flat ceiling height and top of the arched openings be to work well with the 11' vestibule? The backup design would have been 10' flat ceiling in hallway opening to 11' flat ceiling in the vestibule. It's just too ho hum for me but I'm having a hard time visualizing the superior design.

you need a fabulous pendant light for the foyer. That's it. do not put anything inside the framed molding If you're doing iron doors, then maybe you'd like to do some type of iron pendant light. If you have the room, do a nice rug and a small entry table For over the door, could you do a larger window? This would be perfect. I photoshopped this picture onto your photo. here they have a clock, but I suppose you could also do art. just depends on the final look

The first picture shows the front door and the sidelight. I don't know how you would be able to have a table there as there isn't much room, and the door will open right into it. Anything you put there is going to get banged up, and you'll be nicking the door on it constantly. The niche certainly calls out for art. I like the wall color, but if the whole space is too plain for your taste you could always paint it a dramatic color. If you that, it should be a color found in an adjacent room. It looks like maybe navy or a blue-green would look good with your floors.