I vote for hardwood or engineered wood through the whole space, including the kitchen. Opening the wall would be nice, but I suspect your appliances are arrayed along that wall? I'd paint the wall the same pale color as the living space, and hang a really big mirror on the wall if you can't open it. Then you open the wall visually, and reflect the light from the sliders back into the space. (I know...me and mirrors. They are great manipulators of space, particularly when you commit to making them big!)

Frankly-I'm not sure. Not a big fan of accent walls too, unless architecture supports this choice somehow.. But it doesn't mean it can't be done-or that you won't like it. There are many ways to work with colors, and some are fairly non-standard, and they surprisingly can work..sometimes. Which wall do you want to do in gray? (or-which one you want to feature as white?) (I googled Intense White by the way..I'm sure it shows differently from what it is in reality though, because Gray Owl is right next to it, and reads quite different from your samples..:)

Again, too much metal, too much matchy stuff. Don't buy any more metal stuff. Don't shop for wall items at the big box stores. Hit second hand and antique shops or some interesting art, No More Metal!

Essenzza ignore issues of taste and home clutter. There is not one taste or one type of good style, and home decoration should be the artful arrangement of the ideas and functions YOU want in your home. The issue I find, with family photos, is that small framed ones wash out when viewed from far away, and there is a limit to how many large family photos you want displayed prominently in your home and where. My husband, god bless him, insists on large family photos on the shelving unit across from our bed in our small bedroom. His family is constantly staring at me! He finds it comforting, I find it a little less than restful. But I can live with it. So that's an example. I'd feel the same way about a large family photo in a living room or family room over a fireplace. It's just too much like "The Smith's survey the room!" On the other hand, slightly smaller in a less prominent space surrounded by some more casual shots, it might be "Remember those happy times when we were all together!" But anyway, I think you are talking about a collection of smaller photos. The issue with those is you can't really see them unless you can get up close to them, which is why I would not put them on either side of the TV. Given that parameter, I would put up a display shelf under the "Eat" sign in the dining room. Then I would either put the stuff on the dining room credenza on the shelf and put a collection of family photos in a mixture of nice frames on the credenza, OR put the family photo mixture on the shelf. I have seen both done well in dining room inspiration photos which you could probably find by googling "dining room family photos arrangement on shelf" or some such thing or by searching Houzz photos. That way people can stand up close to the photos and look at them if they want, and yet the montage still looks good from a distance. Again, I would shoot for more casual photos, not a dominant set of people staring straight ahead. I have a two-photo frame with a picture of both my grandmothers staring straight ahead on a credenza in my dining room, along with my tea set in an arrangement. That level of personal display is not overwhelming and doesn't dominate the look of the room and they are accompanied by other decorative elements so their steely gaze is softened by that somewhat! :)