Thanks guys for your continued input. I am making a simple turkey dinner for the family (It is Thanksgiving in this part of the continent) so can't play around with furniture arrangements until later in the week or next weekend. However, I plan to rework the furniture arrangement multiple time with my little furniture cut-outs to see what I can do in both the great room and the dining room if the window seat moves there. I will post some alternatives later this week and hope you will come back to see them when the post pops up again. Here are few replies: Oakleyok, Your idea of placing a love seat in front of the window seat had not occurred to me at all. I will try out your idea with my furniture cut-outs. I agree that we should have room for a couch facing the TV if we lose the end table. The plant idea on a window ledge is great, although I tend to send plants into palliative care quite quickly LOL. I do see the family using the window seat for reading. Given we are in Canada it is rarely too hot or too sunny near a window. Thanks again for your help. Lavender_lass, Wow that dining room bump out is so beautiful!! Sadly, we won't be able to do that at this point in construction as the brick cladding is already on the back of the house. Also, we have a climber rather close to that side of the back now that the addition is done, and I wouldn't want to reduce the passage between climber and house any more. Yet, I will draw up a window seat in the dining room as I like that look. I was going to make a shallow shelf for decorative plates in the south/west corner of the dining room (top right corner). Maybe I can make some sort of combo window seat/plate shelf. I just have to find a way to accommodate that smaller dining room window on the west side. Thanks for your help and inspiration. Rosie, I am totally with you on disliking the "turn your back on family" seating arrangements. I do think Lavender's arrangement improves upon that problem. I am not worried about anyone walking in front of the TV. We don't even have cable, so mostly use the TV for movies once in a while. The kids use the one in the basement with their X-box a bit more frequently. I will do just as your aptly described to try every possible arrangement with a variety of furniture. Maybe the TV has to move so we are facing the dining room more rather than having our backs to it. Do you think we need a new spot for the TV?? I hate to think about moving that fireplace other than scooting it back a bit as the vent is installed through bricks, but if it has to move....don't tell DH just yet. Thanks ever so much for your kind help, Rosie. Carol P.S. Please come back everyone to see the various alternatives I post by next weekend. In meantime, if you have any more ideas I am all ears.

Raspberry is a very interesting choice, I'll consider it. I also like gray as well but we have too much gray in the house. How about cream white? I've attached the same photo again just in case the link won't work.

With your roof I like the Iron Ore window better. Has more contrast than the slate. In the Cape Cod siding you could go with something like Antique Silver or something similar. With the Maibec maybe Driftwood. If you're interested in seeing some virtual finishes on your home check out my web site, Creative Visual Concepts.

Thank you so much for weighing in! The window seats will be on each side of the TV wall under the windows shown in the above picture. :) So, other than the picture window on the far left (shown in original post) there are no other small windows with panels. This said, you have helped me so much! I will do cornices over the three small windows to match the material for the picture window decorative panels!! Phew!! I am so glad I came here to ask because I was about to finalize a quote for these panels that clearly would have been all wrong! Also going to make sure panels anywhere in house reach the floor since I just learned my 1” above floor is too short. Haha