I love your inspiration photo! And I am kinda facing the same dilemma: we are also in the midst of having a mantel and cabs / bookshelves built. I'd wanted to paint them a kind of pale sage (not too dissimilar from your photo) but now am wondering if I should just go with the pale yellow which is our trim color throughout (most of) the house. Anyway, I don't know if you looked at this thread which has umpteen pics of fireplaces / surrounds -- maybe something there will help? What I really got from your message is that you like the look of the painted cabs. That was what I took away from your post, and to me that's telling. We have a painted white kitchen (I mean the cabs are painted white) and in our den our cabs are painted the same pale yellow as our trim. Both of those rooms / cabs see *a lot* of use, and neither shows any scuffing or abuse (and I have LOOKED!). So I'm not sure the cabs getting scuffed is really a reasonable, realistic fear. Seriously. My sons are 4 & 6 and they and their friends avail themselves of everything, so we are not a precious family. What is the natural light like in this room? Do you like a brighter space or are you a darker, cozier kind of person? I think that would carry weight in which way to go. Of course doing the cherry would be beautiful, esp. in marrying your kitchen island, but that could end up being a lot of dark wood. Are you okay with that? I know I haven't told you in which direction to go, but I think there are other circumstances which will help lead you to the right choice. The lighting in the room, and the fact that it'll be hard to really scuff the cabs to the point of repainting. That really is a super inspiration photo -- thanks for sharing!

Whaddya mean, "no one" likes sitting in the middle of a sofa? :-) We never have a problem with it when we have people over, unless someone's being a space hog. I think the one thing that makes a BIG difference, though, is having a three- (or one-) cushion couch as opposed to a two-cushion one, since the middle person all too often ends up sliding into the crack between the two cushions. With a three-cushion couch, each person gets their own cushion, no worries. We had to take out the club chair and ottoman from our 12x12 LR (no family room) because you could only seat 5 people in the whole room, 6 if you crammed two on the ottoman. The set (couch, chair, ottoman) had been purchased for our previous house which had had a rather bigger LR, doesn't fit here. Hope it fits the next house. :-/ If I were staying here and had pots of money, I'd have moved the doorway between kitchen and LR and bought a sectional fitted to the room, and we could have fit probably a dozen people into our LR instead of 8 at most (3 on couch, 2 in small side chairs - not that comfortable - and 2 on the upholstered bench). Our friends, and we too, are getting older and not so much into sitting on floor cushions these days! :-) MrsMarv, don't know whether that manufacturer is in your budget but Hancock and Moore has some gorgeous sectionals, and they don't just do leather. They've added some really amazing fabrics.

Yes it is was meant for a fireplace but we opted not to add one to basement

I think it all depends on what you envision for the fireplace. I don't have your window issue, my wall adjacent to the fireplace is more blank. I would set a comfy chair and table by the fireplace and then put the TV on the blank wall, particularly if you have a big honkin' one like we do. (It's hubs TV) and group a parallel set of couches around it and a recliner. You can view the tv from the side or put it on a mount that can be angled if needed. I'm attaching a photo of my room. As you can see, I have windows on the wall next to the fireplace but they are high up. You can also see in the left corner our futon couch from which we often view the TV, so it shows how you can view the TV well from many angles, particularly when it is HUGE. Also shows two versions of the "comfy chair" table set up by the fireplace, one with an ottoman and one rocker. I can't draw a picture of what I'm talking about but I'm sure others who can do such things will chime in.