I agree it would help to know your zone. Also, my strong suggestion is ammend your soil with compost or manure. I find topsoil doesn't do anything to help plants thrive. Some ideas: Abelia are nice and evergreen with PINK flowers. Some varieties are prettier than others and some are fragrant, too. I'd plant 3 of them along the brick wall in a not perfect row - sort of curved. A few low growing knock out roses scattered in front of the abelia. (Depending on what type of maintence you want you can do old garden roses too) Then possibly a juniper type ground cover. I'd space your agapantha out and add more so they make the curve. You can also add some annual color at the edge. This space can be beauitful but please consider improving your soil. If it gets enough shade and the soil is good hydrangea would do well there but they are bare in the winter so you might want to inter plant with something evergreen. Do gardenia grow well there? In my previous home I had a row of gardenia and at the end a HUGE 20 year old hydrangea and they were great together. If you're in the cooler area hosta would also look nice, especially as an edger. Sunny

There are always the series of expensive things which boil down to a single item which is "priceless". It was there with 3 seconds left in the game. The TV camera was showing a very jubilant Cowher. For less than 2 seconds, Holmgren was shown and the look on his face was one of those "priceless" things! Many of us Wisconsinites have never forgiven him for walking out on the Packers and then taking Favre's best backup. We'll be back! Martin

I'm going to be the lone dissenter. Your space seems very nice, warm, comfortable and casual to me. The first fixture has a dressier feel to it than the room does. The second option down feels very heavy visually to me and since it's directly over your dark island top, I'd avoid that one. The bottom of your pendants will come 30-40" from your countertop. So as long as you have your fixture hit at that level, you're fine. That gives you roughly 22"ish inches to play with for the height of your pendant. And your length of your island is a good length to work with. I like the fourth option down. I'd put two those lanterns over the island or two of the other smaller PB pendants. I think they're both nice and casual and pretty and keep the warm feel of the space. I could see something like 3 working if the scale was right. But I'm not sure with the 8' ceilings. But I want it to have more than 3 lights on top yet not as many as 5 does. I've seen quite a few online with those same lines.

Do you have collectibles? What is the style/theme of your home? If in a warmer climate, mosaic tile would be nice. You could also put a wall paper mural in the nook. Would better be able to help if had additional pics of home.