Have an overall plan before you get or do anything. Keep in mind that all surfaces need to be considered - floor, ceiling, walls, furniture, etc. Your goal may be to develop a unified and cohesive space. I've been playing with color for over 20 years. I'm a winter, and I'm very strict with my colors. I think that rooms need to be either all cool or all warm. Cool colors: bright white, black gray, navy, cool red, purple, royal blue, forest green, pine green, taupe, silver. Warm colors: peach, olive green, golden yellow, tan, off-white, cream, orange, warm orange red, gold. In this space, you have a cool floor, curtains and ceiling, and warm seated furniture.

Opening up the staircase won't make the room larger. It will increase the natural light on the staircase, which could be a good thing, however, losing that amount of drywall in the living room could be a good or bad thing.

No matter what paint color you select, the current wall color will require a primer to cover those dark colors. Why not begin by getting a primer on all the walls? A paint color is decided after the rug and furnishings are selected......... not before, because paint colors are infinite. The colors on the other items are not.

Right now the color of the sofas (warm) is fighting the color of the carpet (cool). Decide which of two you want to go with. Nothing brightens up a room like white. It looks like you have oak cabinets in your kitchen. Get a variety of paint chips and look at them against your cabinets and the carpet if you're keeping it to see if you can find a white that goes with both. Maybe Alabaster or Pure White from SW, or White Dove or Cloud White from BM.

Thank you both for the response. My goal is to redesign the entire living room, creating a unified and cohesive space as you said above. Currently, we have a dark gray floor, as shown in the picture. The living room flows into the kitchen, which is connected to the dining room. We're considering replacing the carpet with hardwood floors for a uniform look across all rooms on the ground floor Or let us know if you think carpet is still a good idea. We are in Seattle so its winter almost 6 months. Open to the idea of getting new furniture as well.

Thinking of using the same paint throughout the first floor instead of having different colors in each room. Would you suggest any specific color theme or design ideas? Also, any suggestions for furniture styles and paint choices that would complement this room? We're aiming to make the space brighter. Excited to hear your ideas and recommendations!

KAndrewSpa, We are planning to paint /reface cabinet colors as well so Kitchen gets more brightness. These are professionally taken pictures but it does not look as bright as we want it in the kitchen

This idea you can't or shouldn't combine cool and warm colors - if that is your preference, thats perfectly ok, but there is no "should" about it, and in fact a color scheme can benefit sometimes by having a secondary color that is contrasting with (ie "complementary to") the main color.

Google "60-30-`10" rule which has to do with proportions or percentages of color in a room for best effect - a main color, a secondary and a third accent which as suggested above could be a color opposite on the color wheel. Or not. Think out a whole house pallette of about 5 colors and then you include them differently in different rooms. That way each room has some variety, but house as a whole is cohesive. Consider that whites, grays, so-called neutrals and wood tones are really colors too, not non colors so their hue family would need to be figured in. Agree that priming out alll the various random dark wall colors will help you immensely - cleanses the palate so to speak!

Yeah the choice of final exact paint color happens after you have furnishings but its good I think to have a preliminary map of where youre going, otherwise it can get kinda overwhelming! And its a little less hit or miss to have something of a plan.

`BTW I can't see how removing the staircase wall makes space "larger" - looks like its already opened up on top and if you see a stair railing there instead of solid wall its only going to look more cluttery - I think y ou already have enough angles and alcoves and architectural stuff going on.