The optimal, although pricey, solution to the heating of a two story room is radiant floor heating. Both forced air and radiant systems invariably create air movement which allows warm air to rise. Since the warmest part of the room is at ceiling level, that energy is wasted (unless you're hosting bald NBA players). With radiant floor heating, the heat is evenly distributed all over the floor. It can't rise because there's no way for cold air to get underneath it to replace it as it rises. Consequently, the floor is the warmest part of the room and the ceiling is the coolest. And since your extremities are the first thing to feel a chill (especially as you get older), your room "feels" warmer than the reading on the thermostat. We have a two story living room and radiant heating throughout the house. The previous house I built had a two story great room without radiant and that's why radiant was a must for this house. Incidentally, it saves energy in rooms with ceilings of only 9-10', too. That said, recognize that in most places, you'll still have to install forced air ducting for A/C (and may want to install a furnace to deal with radiant's lag). One final thought on high ceilings. Lighting shouldn't be a problem if done correctly. Our ceiling has cans on dimmers in a box beam ceiling. That plus accent lighting works great (see below). Bob

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.

Here ya go, Doonie. I used some fabric from my stash, something I loved and had intended to use in the last house. Given the color, and that this house feels smaller, I thought that isolating the orange in the stairway would be a safe bet. I see it all the time, and get to enjoy the fabric, but I don;t have to force it to play nice with anything else. The rod is set way above the window casing. I told my seamstress to just make the panels as long as she could. The shade is a very affordable discovery from Amazon. They are by Top Blinds -- custom sizes at off-the-shelf prices. The perspective is off in the photo...the rod is actually somewhat lower than the wood gate. I think this WT does a nice job filling up the empty space of the double-height stairway.

I dig the banners Groveraxle posted, they're 8ft high! That's a statement worth making. I advise against hanging most art, like your own examples, so far above eye level. Just ignore the wall above and concentrate on finding items that are a nice proportion to the length of the wall/area. We humans tend to concentrate on what's in our line of sight. Too high or low, eh. For the most part, art should hang at a level that's easy to appreciate the work. The center is usually about 60" from the floor. Otherwise, it's hung in close relationship to piece of furniture, at a comfortable view level. So go lower when viewing it from a seated position. Beth showed examples of maximizing the horizontal plane. That's what I would recommend, as well.