Thanks for your response and suggestion. The wall opposite the couch has a large opening to the dining room and to the right of that is a corner fireplace and then an opening to the front small hall near the front door. The corner we've used is the only wall space available.

Is that a functioning fireplace? It appears to just have candles inside of it? If it is not a functioning fireplace, then mounting a TV above it, may not be bad if you can remove that mantle and mount TV a little lower. That's a small room to watch a TV mounted high on a wall. PLace TV above the shelf wooden cube shelf & have sofa float/face it. You can move sofa now & take pics to see if it seems too cramped. Or but a corner TV stand with a wall mounted TV you can pull out & angle when TV is being used. Or buy a smaller flat screen and mount on 32" wall & down the line, have built in made cooperating fireplace. If this is not the only TV viewing room, I would consider not using it for main TV viewing.

Thanks to both of you! I don't have access to a floorplan, unfortunately. Also unfortunately, I cannot do any major work at the moment, so the ugly mantel stays (and I did not even notice until now that it doesn't match the fireplace!) I would love to put up some artwork, plants, etc in this room as well, when the big pieces are settled. Already thinking about drapes but very little clue where to start - this side of the house faces the street so I really want to get some noise dampening ones, although they would have to fit onto pinch pleat hooks. What are your opinions on the wall sconces? I didn't even think about those! No plans to paint. It's just me doing the whole thing so for now I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible.

This is not your furniture I am guessing? You will want a real table, and need to find a place for it. You will get way better advice with a measured floor plan, and without it we're just throwing ideas around which might not work. But one of the problems is that your kitchen has many doors and openings, some of which are larger than they need to be. When you redesign your kitchen, don't forget that you can move doors much more easily than you can remove load-bearing walls. Reducing the size of the openings between rooms also gives you wall space in the kitchen, which is needed there. Here is one quick idea but obviously we need to know what's behind the walls etc. This gives you a door-less space in the kitchen for a table. Another idea is to have a table where there is now the china cabinet. That room now becomes the living-dining room, and the whole kitchen is available for cabinets. My son's house is arranged that way - no kitchen seating at all at table or counter but close proximity to a table in the living/dining room. Again, you may want to move the door between the kitchen and living room to an optimal place given your new kitchen design. You'd probably leave the door to the hallway from kitchen, in that case.