MA coast or inland? I can’t tell if that is a coastal inlet or a lake in the background. Is this spot mostly shade or does it get a fair amount of sun? If sunny, is it morning, midday or afternoon? Most of your trees look like oaks to me. That would be good because they don’t have as dense or as shallow roots. Regardless, you will need to pay close attention to the watering of these shrubs for the first few seasons since they are competing with mature trees. Actually dig down with fingers or trowel and check that there is enough moisture several inches down. Depending on how you water and what your natural rain fall is this may involve a fair amount of time, so don’t plan on just hand watering. The plants I am suggesting will do best with part sun, but if your conditions are different I will make other suggestions. Herbaceous plants: -Hay-scented fern, Dennstaedtia punctilobula, makes a good groundcover between shrubs. I wouldn’t likely plant it until the shrubs have gotten to at least waist high since it is tall enough to cast some shade. There are other native ferns that aren’t ground covers and stay as individual plants If you don’t want to worry about the running habits of this fern. -Daffodils and snow drops, both of which look fine at woodland edges and are fairly critter-proof. - Epimediums, - Hellebores, - woodland phlox AKA Phlox divaricata Some native shrubs that might work well here include: - Native Viburnums such as V. acerifolium, maple leafed viburnum, and Virburnum nudum, witherod viburnum. These two species aren’t bothered by Viburnum beetles in my yard and both have spring flowers, berries for the birds, and a nice pink-red autumn color (depending on amount of sun) that hangs on quite late. - Fothergilla has fat bright chartreuse buds in early spring that open to honey-scented bottle brush flowers, and has some mix of bright gold, orange and red autumn foliage that lasts in my garden until the oaks drop their leaves - Mountain Laurel aka Kalmia latifolia is a broadleafed native evergreen that has spring flowers in various shades of pink, red and white. Quite shade tolerant, but some sun gives denser growth and more flowers. - Rhododendron hardy in our area exist that range in height from a foot to over 15’ and include both evergreens and deciduous types. Most of the deciduous types have nice fall color and some of the evergreens have leaves that shift towards olive or purple in winter. They flower from early spring to midsummer, depending on variety. - Hydrangea paniculata is a long bloomer, 3 or 4 months for me. It is happy with a fair amount of sun in New England. They start out greenish to white and later in the season shade to pink. Along a woodland edge like this, I think one of the smaller flowered types will look better placed than one of the cultivars with huge dense blossom clusters. So look at Quickfire or Little Quickfire or White Diamond rather than Limelight or Strawberry Vanilla or similarly voluptuous panicles. Sometimes there is some yellow fall color. - Spicebush aka Lindera benzoin, has super early tiny gold-chartreuse flowers that glow against an evergreen backdrop. They offer berries for the birds, food for spicebush swallowtail caterpillars, and stunning bright gold autumn foliage. If you want some large shrubs or small to medium flowering trees: - Cornus florida, flowering dogwood, white or pink spring flowers, some have fall color - Redbud, Cercis canadensis, lovely leaves, screaming magenta-pink spring flowers - Stewartia has lovely winter bark, scattered summer flowers, and gorgeous fall color. - Amalanchier, shadblow or serviceberry. Early spring flowers, edible fruit for you or the critters

I wonder if you might be happier if you had trim around the doors and molding along the top? That might give it a more finished look. It’s hard to think of putting anything up there not knowing your decor style.

My daughter has a room like this ita a pass thru to per patio. She ended up with a smaller couch a small unique cofee table. And two different chairs on each end. Oh and and a rug and a standing lamp. She has three fairly large plants in there as well. And since they are musical a nice piece of art and a couple of guitars on the wall. It’s charming.

Hi, I think adding a reading chair, lamp, end table all sound good. You can go in couple of directions: firstly you can think about adding two chairs with an end table, table lamp, rug and artwork; secondly, if you go for a single chair, floor lamp and end table, try and add a rug, console with some storage and style it in a way it enhances the wall that is at an angle.