I don't get this house. Besides all that has been mentioned above...The front door (the main door to the house) dumps you (and visitors) into the dining room. If that were a formal dining room, seldom used, it would be odd and awkward, but it is the ONLY dining area in the house. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, kids studying, dropping book bags, school projects--all as the first thing everyone sees when they walk in. There's no place there that can stay a bit messy (like a breakfast nook). As I look at other spaces and see huge usability and interoperability issues, I think that this is, once again, a house that no one has given thought to how people live. The rooms exist like pieces in a Tetris game, not as a unified whole. Who puts a toilet next to a bed head? Who gives prime exterior wall space to a closet? Who puts the tub and the crapper in the same room ("Sorry, honey, I'm in the tub. Use another toilet.")? Why split that room into two that way? Who designs a media room with no closable door (and a bedroom right above, with no closet)? The only--only--thing that makes sense is the location of the powder room--away from the beaten path yet handy and discreet. But with a pointless pocket door. There are so many violations of Architecture 101, it amazes me.

Ingrid--I definitely think something colorful on the floor would help! It is very sterile. I have held off on getting stuff because I wasn't sure which way I wanted to go with it. I did try a big bookcase in front of the curtain but it made it seem way too closed off. Thank you for your suggestions! deegw--I love the colorful rug that you placed in front of the door! Not sure about the bright curtain (I feel like it will close off the space even more or just seem like too much since it's floor to ceiling). But I do agree that it needs something. mdln--Omg I can't!!! I showed my fiancé and best friend the painting you put on the wall!! It's too good! Thank you so much for your effort! That photo honestly made me smile so much! Jan--It's definitely not ideal to have the 'bedroom' where it's at but it honestly has been working out WAY better to have the bed there than my study space. My law school friend always comes over to study so her desk is here too. She can't study with white noise or music...and with nothing playing, you can hear EVERYTHING going on in the hallway (outside of our apartment). Also, when my fiancé comes home from work (he works a 9-5), he obviously wants to make something to eat, watch TV, and just relax from his day at work but it was very distracting for my friend and I. And plus, he was having to worry about being quiet and I just didn't want that. Because there's no door, you can hear everything going on in the kitchen, living room, etc. With the office now in the 'bedroom,' we can close the door and hardly hear anything (even in the living room and kitchen). The new 'bedroom' is super cozy and we can't hear anything in the hallway or even in the apartment because my fiancé and I are both heavy sleepers and we also play a rain/white noise machine at night to block anything out. It has definitely given us more 'usable' space as well because the bedroom is a pretty decent size and since it's now an 'office,' friends and family come in and hang out sometimes and there is just more room in general than when the bed was in there. Here's the floor plan of our apartment. If you want specific pictures of other rooms (ones that show how it is NOW, then I definitely can do that--just let me know!!). Thank you for your willingness to help out Jan!

Instead of removing the black walnut, you could remove the scruffy, small limbs at the bottom of its canopy and deal with future branches hanging lower as they come, over time. This would allow more light to serve screening plants that can be installed below the walnut. In other words, I don't think you need to get rid of the walnut in order to have a screen. And the walnut's size, because it is limbed up, does not consume much yard space. Screening is going to come best from large shrubs, which do not take all that long to grow, placed in front of the fence. As an example, whatever dark green shrub your neighbor has behind the right corner of your fence would be the type of plant sufficient to screen your view from the deck. Even they could be limbed up into trees to consume less yard space since you have the fence behind them. There are lots of shrubs that get this big and many of them flower spectacularly, or provide some kind of show, such as fall color. You could have all one kind or a mixture as you prefer. If you limb up some or all of them, you are creating an opportunity to put lower shrubs, perennials, annuals, groundcover, etc. below them. This is just an example. You can mix it up any number of ways. But don't make the bed too shallow. It needs to have 6'-8' depth min., not 3' or 4'. Let the bed acknowledge the tree by circling around it, not cutting close to or across it.

I did not do the final designs you see. I used PAINT, but then my cabinet designer drew what you see above. The shelves in my study sit on top of an air return box (the grill is facing in the hall behind the study wall. I added a photo of that. Grill outlines in white.) Since there was this large hump sticking out in the study, I decided that the space above could be put to good use. I did a similar thing in the back of our house. Air return in hallway. Bump out was in my closet. I built shelves about it for pocketbooks. You could build a cabinet with doors above your air return.