It's a long walk to a lot of the house, we realize. Heck, we both have 10 pounds to lose. :) The secondary stairs by the kids' bedrooms upstairs leads right to the kitchen so I have a feeling that's where we will go down. Which means walking through the mezzanine more. Still undecided about the roof. We went to look at some models today that had similar great room concepts. They had flat ceilings with some nice coffered details instead of the gable roof line we plan on doing in that room. So now we are thinking that may be a another option.

The scale of your furniture will be immensely important. Loft/apartment sized pieces will save you a lot of space and heartache. Personally, I would try to use the kitchen as the formal dining space, making use of the long wall for a settee, a trestle table and chairs. A round dining table is going to require 36" of space all around for chairs to scoot out and to navigate around. Taking advantage of the wall and a slim table will make a big difference. Then you'll have all the rest of the space in the front to make two seating areas; one for TV up front where there is a wall for the TV on a credenza, a 3-seat sofa and a chair. The middle area by the stairs would be for cocktails, conversation, reading with a nice pair of chairs, floor lamp and area rug.

It looks like the best thing is to start with a new 3 seat sofa. Since you have the TV above the mantle, we assume you want your seating positioned that way. Then you will want two chairs to go on the wall directly across from the slider. You also may like a rug? Below you can get a lot of great ideas from designs of ours. Note the furniture, rugs, end tables, pillows, lamps, artwork, window treatments, coffee tables, and various other decor accessories.

I think the piece the TV is on would feel more at home in the basement with the chunky coffee table. Your home looks to be more contemporary in style except for the stair railing and the big empty display/bookcase. Do you have the budget to remove the built-in? That would give you some wall space for furniture and art. What is the exterior style of your home? Can you pull off a contemporary interior design and not stray too far from the look of the house outside? I don't think the DR is large enough to add more furniture there. I suggest a great piece of art and a rug that is 36-42" larger than your table top on every side. Pull the same colors into the LR with big art on the wall opposite the FP and above a 3-seat sofa where the built-in is. You can do another rug in the LR that is similar in style and color to the DR rug. For example, here are two navy rugs that could work together. The top one picks up your wall color, and the bottom one picks up on the fireplace stone.