Oh my goodness, I came back from work today and was amazed by all your creativity! I see the advantage of having a strong "end" to the hallway. I checked CL and visited some used furniture stores. I found a table and a small chest that may be possible, but I will hold off for a few days because they are larger than the space really permits. mo13 and patty cakes  Ledges may be the way for me to go if I cannot find a piece of furniture to anchor the space. And yes an assortment of smaller mirrors GumbosoupÂI will tidy the books, but they canÂt ALL go away  because there is no other place in the house! Bookends and painting the shelves are a good idea. My sense that is that multiple small round rugs will feel cluttered (because the hall space isnÂt as long as it looks in the first picture.) calicocat1967Âyes, I like this. Do you have its dimensions? Teacats  thanks for the source for mirrors caminnc  This looks beautiful and I see what you mean about making the end wall dramatic. The challenge is that size of furniture really shouldnÂt be much bigger than 30 inches wide by (an average of ) 10 inches deep. I found a rectangular chest (not as pretty as the one you have) that is 32 by 11 1/8th and has an off-white stone top. It is at a second hand store and could be stained ebony and I could change the hardware to be like the one in your pic. I also found a two tiered demi-lune table that is 13 inches deep at its widest. This still feels too big. ideefixe  My leaning at this point is to tidy up the bookcase. elizgonz ÂWhy thank you. My LR improved dramatically after getting suggestions from the kind folk on this forum. In terms of color, most of the rooms that fall off this yellow "spine" of the house are vividly colored: two red, two dark blue, one teal, and one brown. We are not adverse to vivid color, but were trying to have a more neutral core to the house.

I have found I prefer the mix of trims. I don’t like very evenly lit recessed lighting, and I think it’s become more popular. It doesn’t feel natural to me, even with dimmers. I’ve been starting from a wall where I want gimbals and working out from there, but I’ll admit it really makes my brain hurt, which is why I’m searching the lighting posts tonight! I really like the Juno deep 4” trim wdccruise mentioned. I think it’s Haze or something but I’ve been looking at trim for hours now so I’m probably mixing them up. I used one in a single location and almost regret it since I’m about to buy 9 housings, trims, and bulbs and now I want them all to look like that, and they’re much more expensive than what I’ve used before. Halo has something similar. I think they’d especially look nice mixed with other lights, like surface mounts or period ceiling lights, because they don’t show as much and don’t look as stark as more shallow fixtures, like the led retrofit kits.

You need to talk to a structural engineer before you get your heart set on any layout. With enough time and money, you could do almost anything, but the structural engineer would be able to give you some parameters for what is more likely. Then you can do floor plans. You should probably also plan this in phases. Even if you are very handy, you will need to have a plumber and electrician and structural engineer and architect to draw up plans for permits. Plus most people removing structural walls hire professionals for that part as they should. It's not really a YouTube friendly DIY, even if there are videos of how to do it. Those professionals (adding on/moving plumbing and plumbing fixtures, updating electrical, nee beam, possibly new supports for that beam in thr basement, etc) and some of the materials will probably cost you close to 50K unless you are in a very LCOL area. Doing this in phases might be frustrating, but would make it more doable. It may also be worth doing some asbestos testing before tearing into walls and ceilings in a house from that era. You don't want to unleash that! (For what its worth, I have wanted to take out a wall between my kitchen and dining room for years but my husband, who does have the technical experience to do it, says it will be too much of a pain to be worth it.) Good luck and keep updating!

I think both sides might be too much; I like where you've placed the 3 together. It's impossible to know what colors would work since we don't know what you like or what colors are in the rest of your home. I'd probably find art I love, then find a rug that complements it. If you do that, you can post back here for help finding the perfect runner. You can do it the other way around (rug first), but there are a gazillion rug choices. It may be harder to find just the right art.