Consider building bench and/or chair seating into and as a part of your railing. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/388013324126805711/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/231513237068103183/ You could always add an additional chair. If your chess board is wood, depending upon how it's made, you might consider adding legs to your chessboard and making it a table top. Instead of just buying legs, perhaps you could find a suitably sized small table at a used furniture shop that needs a new top anyway, it's worth considering. Or if you could find one of the more solid wood folding tables and affix your chessboard to the top, that could make storing it when not in use easier. Or if you could find a pedestal -- wood or metal -- that would be suitably sized for the board or a wood lamp base that could serve as a pedestal. Or if you could find an old metal base for a pedal sewing machine on which it would fit. http://foter.com/explore/chess-board-tables-furniture

I read your post and looked at your pictures. My thought was: "What a comfortable home - I could move right in!" So what really bugs you about it? I agree with removing the clock. You could mount the tv on the wall, (hiding the cords?) but is it really worth it? Same with bar stools. I would use them, but if you're sure you never would, why buy them? If you decide to get 2 anyway, choose a style that fits neatly under the island overhang - perhaps a "saddle" style? Wall art? Your wonderful windows are wall art! And... you have a lovely glass case for displaying art objects that you can change out on your whim. Golden oak furniture. I live in a house filled with golden oak furniture my parents accumulated during the 1980's. And golden oak kitchen cabinets they chose when they built a house in 1991. It wasn't until I started reading Gardenweb forums in 2010, I learned that golden oak was "out" and "orange-y". Up till then, I simply thought of all these pieces as "wood". And wood that went well with other (inherited) pieces in the house that date back to the 1920's- 1940's. Trendy or not - it works in MY house. If you truly dislike golden oak, why not sell it and buy what you would like used? Might be more cost effective than buying paint, or hiring someone to professionally paint your furniture. Especially if you might not be pleased with the finished results. Again, I suggest you ask yourself...what REALLY bugs you about your home?

How old are your children? I think it would be a great desk/homework/computer area, and/or reading nook with a comfy chair

Some of my all-time favorite shows are British, starting with Monty Python (which I still watch on DVD), Absolutely Fabulous (which I also have on DVD), and Keeping Up Appearances, which I like better than Kevin does, as Hyacinth reminds him of his ex-MIL. She reminds me of our grandmother, although she was Alsatian instead of British, but she was an English professor. I do very much appreciate the British sense of humor. My German (Alsatian) grandmother had no sense of humor and my mother did not have much of one either. Germans are not known for humor, and in my studies of German literature, for which I have a B.A. degree, I rarely found humorous writings, although I think that is changing now. I did not study much German literature past the mid 20th Century. The only writers that I found that had a sense of humor were Jewish and reminded me more of Russian Jewish literature than German. Zalco, that is a good explanation, and I had not thought of it that way. I'll keep that in mind the next time I hear it. I do tend to be very literal and therefore miss out on a lot of jokes or even make some accidentally😵. Your analogy reminds me of Molière's The Misanthrope, in which one side says that telling white lies is preferable to brutal honesty. When I first read that play, I identified with Célimène, but I'm not sure I do anymore. If one is prefacing a potentially offensive statement with "to be honest..." I think that that makes the offense even worse instead of better. It just sounds like it is an excuse to insult. I lived with someone from New York for four years when I first moved to San Francisco, and it took me a while to get used to his sarcasm as well, and it was impossible to take many of the things he said literally, such as "Get out of here" (although I did take that seriously at first) and "Did you die?"