To answer above questions: We plan to use the living room as a living room: relaxing and socializing. Most of the time there will be all adults but occasionally there will be kids. The sitting area is expected to accomodate 6-8 people. We will buy all the furnitures, and will have a carpenter do all necessary carpentry work including customized cabinetry if shelfing needed. In two or three years we will have a baby grand piano but not at the moment. We prefer not to have a tv in the room. Other than that, we don't have strong preference on what kind of sofa/love seat/chair/sectional to have. Unfortunately, unlike Annie suggested, the fireplace has sort of already become the "focal point" of the room with a fairly delicated mantel. The carpentry work involved was quite pricy so we hope we don't have to destroy it...

Roemama, I think you're going to need a new thread. It would really help if you put your next round of sketches on graph paper so that people can see the scale more easily. What I will say about the current sketch is that putting the sink, stove and fridge on separate walls in a U shaped kitchen, even a narrow one, unless it's only galley wide, doesn't usually give the most comfortable workflow pattern. It's doable in your case, with about a 6' aisle, but it's pushing it. There is a lot of sense in putting the fridge accessible to the eating area. You might want to give some consideration to work zones. In this sized kitchen they'll overlap, of course, but it might help you figure out how to organize things. Most people have a prep area for getting things ready to cook which needs knives and other tools, cutting board, bowls or whatever you put things in that can't go right in the pot, etc. A clean-up area where things that need to be washed go. A baking area--even if you don't "bake" you probably make a quiche or sweetpotato pie or something bakish. The baking area is for your mixer, rolling pin, scrapers, staples, baking pans, etc. The cooking zone needs pots, stirrers, seasonings spices and oils that you use at the stove, etc. Beverage/toast/snack zone for breakfast, coffee, and nibbling. If you can figure out which things you need to reach when you're standing in which spot, you'll be able to plan your storage accordingly.

For some perspective, here's a crude sketch of the floor plan. The dot and arrow show where the picture was taken. The sketch shows a different position for the fridge and a counter, but dimensionally the "wall of stuff" is accurate. The whole open floor plan shown is something like 750 square feet.

Personally, I'd get two sofas. This will allow for an end table and lamp to be placed in the corner. Also, people usually like arms to lean on when they sit. However, if you like the extra seating the sectional offers, I would decorate the curved void with a large floor vase or floor lamp.