I wanted to post some after photos and thank everyone who took the time to comment. It turns out that the wall was "indented" when we removed the chair rail so my DH has spent several weekends to build it back up with joint compound and texture it to blend in with the walls. It was a painfully tedious process (first trying to do it by hand, then with a sponge, then with spray-on compound that dribbled everywhere, and finally with a trowel lightly loading dabs of compound on). If you look closely you can still tell, but it's not as glaring as it was several iterations ago. Suffice to say, we are thrilled to be done with sanding, priming, texturing, and painting! Now, I need to figure out what wall decor to put up as the removal of the chair rail makes it a much easier space to deal with! Any and all advice would be appreciated. I was thinking of doing a photo gallery near the front entry, but that is a HUGE wall and I don't know that I can put photos high enough where you can still see them but not so low that the wall looks off-balance. Forgive the quality of the photos, taken without a flash on my iPhone.

Yes, to your first question. You can see the lower TV room ceiling here and how it opens to the foyer. That walkway measures 47" width ( including future baseboard.) I thought a post against that wall would balance the newel on the other side and allow for a "separation" between spaces? I don't know what the color should do in this area? My husband wants the darker brown for the TV room. Also, our color "cocoa" drives me crazy- it goes pinky (flesh beige) with an east facing window light-(the picture below was taken this morning) and goes blue(brown) and relaxed in the evening with sconce/lamp light. I love the color in the evening. Most mornings, I think I need to repaint! Thanks for your interest.

There seems to be 2 schools of thought on this dilemma. Most decorators seem to be in the camp as cawaps. Keep art at eye level. Keep the room grounded. The second camp uses the space. I am squarely in the second camp, but do think that the space can get overwhelming if there is too much going on. Keep it simple. Here is a link to a page that provides some ideas for decorating tall walls. https://www.tidbitsandtwine.com/28-creative-decorating-ideas-for-tall-walls/ I love this picture:

I dig the banners Groveraxle posted, they're 8ft high! That's a statement worth making. I advise against hanging most art, like your own examples, so far above eye level. Just ignore the wall above and concentrate on finding items that are a nice proportion to the length of the wall/area. We humans tend to concentrate on what's in our line of sight. Too high or low, eh. For the most part, art should hang at a level that's easy to appreciate the work. The center is usually about 60" from the floor. Otherwise, it's hung in close relationship to piece of furniture, at a comfortable view level. So go lower when viewing it from a seated position. Beth showed examples of maximizing the horizontal plane. That's what I would recommend, as well.