Thanks everyone. I definitely understand the temptation to re-arrange. I literally spent months playing around with layouts on arrange a room & other software and then as soon as we got rid of the armoire I spent the night/early a.m. moving all the furniture around to try different options; it's a challenging space b/c it's small, has un-even wall widths, and way too many passageways & windows. Les's 1st suggestion has potential (tried it when i moved the stuff the 1st time although i didn't have the chairs yet so it was harder to visualize). But it makes the room look smaller & only leaves about 30" to pass on each side of the loveseat(the short wall and passage to the other side means i have to float the loveseat so that it's even with where it is now, just rotated perpendicularly). But I will try it again tomorrow to see what DH thinks. 2nd suggestion won't work b/c of the disparity in wall widths. The cabinet by the door will definitely go once I find an end table; it's just there as a placeholder. The bookshelves will be gone soon (hate them in that spot--they used to flank the armoire on the chair wall--- but I needed someplace to store books in the interim). Hmm, was wondering if roman shades would work with panels; will keep that in mind, thanks andee. Red--Good point re: delaying the art & rug. I was out shopping for rugs again this weekend (have been looking since I bought the chairs a couple weeks ago) but having trouble pulling the trigger with other aspects of the room still in flux. Will probably just return that art or move it somewhere else. I've had two ideas re: bookshelves since posting. One is getting custom corner units from the unfinished furniture store, tall enough to end at or near the ceiling, ending about 12-16" away from the piano. Similar to built-in corner china cabinets I've seen in other houses in my area, except that these would just hold books and not have doors. The other idea is to put a single ceiling-height bookshelf in between the two chairs (instead of an end table), and then flank the piano with two low bookshelves (around the height of the keys). It would be even better to just have 1 tall bookshelf between the chairs and leave the space on either side of the piano empty, but I think we have too many books (DH has boxes of books that he put in storage when we were planning to sell the house; I need to get him to go retrieve them next weekend so I can see exactly how much shelf space we need). Would those ideas work? If I go the custom route I will have to wait a couple of months to get them. I need to go to bed and my camera battery is dead, so I will take pix of the other side of the room tomorrow.

The house has nice architecture. That is why the current landscaping is so bad, in my non professional opinion. There is no need for tall plants between windows. The plants to the sides of the stoop are planted too close to the house and also appear to narrow the entrance by encroachment. The beauty of the house could be viewed better by simple landscaping that does not overwhelm. I am curious about the large broad leaf shrub at the right corner. It is not too close to the foundation and could possibly be trained to grow as a small tree which would be nice. Do you know the species? I would not spend money to enhance a path that you have said is not used. Rather I would add a path to the street. As I said, I am not professional so my image is very crude. Don't take much notice of the color of plants. Just the sizes. I also enlarged the lights. Here is a cape cod without shutters. You may prefer the look of no shutters after you give it a try. ^Notice the lack of tall shrubs between windows. The last house looks very nice even without shrubs. Not that I would leave it bare but I am attempting to show that you do not need to hide the house behind a lot of greenery when it is already attractive. The house above looks nice with taller shrubs because it has a raised foundation which yours does not. Start looking at gardening pictures in magazines and books and online. Houzz has many. It would help if you could take some pictures standing in the front doorway. One facing center, then one each of right and left while standing in the same place. It is important that the garden look nice to the homeowner while looking out the windows. I also want to add that it is easy to find beautiful landscape pictures but if you are not a hobby gardener I would stick with something simple. A garden like this needs weekly maintenance.

Is there anything inside that soffit? I'd be tempted to remove the whole thing, and just patch the ceiling! then you can put your recessed lights wherever you want rather than having them focused on empty space. It's good to think about flooring before demo. I guess the simplest would be either to get new LR carpet, extending it out to cover the seam, or to just pull it up and put down wood everywhere -- can't see your exact flooring, but basic oak seems easy to match, and they should be able to weave it in and then sand and refinish everything to match, so there's no seam/border needed. as long as it's real wood..

If the patch done the right way it will not look like a patch.