Sorry for the lack of information...hope this helps - alwaysfixin - we have 9'3" ceilings (1906 Victorian), and 42" upper cabinets. They have already been ordered (including the moldings) and have been shipped to the local warehouse - so with 42" uppers, we are looking at them ending at 8', which leaves 15" to play with. The moldings are around 3" vertical, hence the 12" panel. Our contractor is going to make the upper panel, and hasn't made it yet - he is the one that brought up it being too large. He suggested open shelving/cubbies, but we sort of think it would be a hard to reach space that would end up gathering dust. Any other ideas?? Thanks for the great feedback so far!

Congrats on the new home! My husband and I also purchased our first house recently (been in it about six months) and we're in a similar boat (though with our ratty college furniture instead of hand-me-downs), embarking on an adventure to cohesively decorate the place. While I do have good sense of how to decorate and am not worried about going about it, it would have been really difficult even for me to decorate immediately, so I'm not concerning myself with it (we also have a bunch of house projects in the way). Basically, a good strategy is to take your sweet time and not worry about stuff not matching/ suiting your tastes or the walls not being quite the right color right now. Hone your vision and slowly collect pieces that adhere to it, adding to your spacing or swapping something out. Also, simply live in your space for a while. Be by yourselves, have a friend over, have lots of friends over, host a fancy dinner party and also a casual barbecue. Observe how you and your friends interact with and move around in the space - this will handily inform what kind of seating you might need and how you want to arrange things. I'm always taking mental notes when people are over lol.

This is what I did in our TV room. Dear other half installed (evenly) wall speakers here just like yours. I tried the obscuring route with a floor lamp and oddly placed plant, but those didn't work and the point is not to block sound waves with anything in front of them, but since the speakers had a magnetic fabric face on them, I just removed those and I hung three velvet curtain panels from floor to ceiling. I love the way the room feels with this effect too, just right for a TV room, though it probably would be good for other rooms as well.

Strat by getting a lower TV cabinet and putting the TV at the proper viewing height so the top lines up with the opening on that wall, Are you able to get new furniture ? I do not like the 2 chairs not facing the FP or the TV IMO a sofa and 2 chairs would be a much better choice . You need a large piece of art on that wood wall . Could you maye take a coulpe more pics to show the whole space