So much has happened (husband quite ill, husband getting better, husband home, but with wheel chair, then walker) that I'm starting to rethink some of my earlier ideas, for remodeling the house. (It's going to be a while, but still hoping to do it at some point!) I've been watching Nicole Curtis and liking the living room open to dining room that she has in so many of the older homes. I really like the built-ins and fireplace (even the stained wood trim!) and I'm rethinking the living room/bedroom. The addition put the bedroom behind the living room, but it would be so easy to open them up to each other, with a big archway. The living room is 18 'x 14' and the bedroom is 18' x 13'. It's a lot of space for an area we might no use as much as the kitchen and den, but I think it would be beautiful. And it might be a great place to overflow, when we have a lot of work to do and need more space than our home office. So, anyone done anything similar? Have you turned a lager room into the dining room and decided to keep the smaller dining area part of the kitchen? That room is pretty small, so the current kitchen and dining room would make a great kitchen/nook area. Just not big enough for more than 4 (maybe 6) people to eat...and we have a large family! After what's happened, I realize you can't take anything for granted and want to start hosting more holiday and family dinners, as soon as we can :)

Hi, Bru, Could you please post pictures of both windows? The windows in my house that have shutters, dining room and upstairs bath, have them either half-way up (DR) or 3/4 of the way up (bath). In each case, the shutter tops align with the muntins in the windows. The windows in my house are '6 over 1' (6 panes on the top over one on the bottom). I'm not a shutter expert, but I would also want each sized window in proportion with each other. This is an awful picture of one of my DR windows. If this helps at all, the over all window length, from top to bottom of trim is 64". The height of the shutter is 20", and the shutter comes up to the mid-point of the glass. The WT hangs down 22" in the center, not including the tassels. I hung the rod 2" out to the side from the upper window trim and 2" above it. I didn't use any formula to determine how far down I wanted the valance to hang, but mine generally hang down to the center of the glass in the upper window. You can barely see the horizontal muntin in the picture, but note how the bottom of the valance is pretty much in line with it, excluding the tssels. If your windows have muntins, that may be your clue as to what size shutters you want and how far down to let the valance center hang.

I have a few more options. What do you think? Palimpsest, I did the one panel like you suggested and fixed the heights. I also like the idea of doing sort of a raised panel look, either in the color of the trim (with everything the same color) or else in the color of my book cases so it could mimic the book cases on the other wall (they will be stained blue) Any of these options look good? If I went with option 4 or 5, I'd probably have the paneling look more like this than exactly like above: Either painted trim color or painted in the blue.

Love it! I was so bummed when I saw earlier in the post you had decided to leave the wall red/trim white. It looks so 80's to me to have the trim contrast with the wall. It just makes it look like you glued wood pieces in shapes to your walls. When painted all white, it really just looks so much richer and fits perfectly with the windows. I just love it!