Wow! I am so thankful for all of your help. Such thoughtful and creative ideas. I will start with the practical, like replacing the vacuum cover, and adding movable art over the thermostat. Elle, your observation about the height of the peak vs. ceiling in adjacent room is so astute. I would never have thought of that. I was wondering whether I should repeat the colour on my accent wall on that corner. I'm going to look into the vertical piece of art as well. You all have such amazing brains! I love the plant idea too! Beth, you put so much time in helping me, your ideas are awesome! Not sure I'm ready to paint the wooden staircase. I think it would look amazing, but I always fear painting something that is a permanent wood feature, like I'm desecrating trees or something, lol! It's actually a very light wood. I do wish I had the guts; the pics you added are very cool. Will give that some thought for sure. You all have given me such great ideas. Exactly the inspiration I needed. Thanks so, so much. Was my first design dilemma help request, and I'm really bowled over! Happy New Year everyone!

So a few things: -Be careful doing dark flooring and a dark ceiling. It may feel like the room is closing in on you. I'd go lighter for one of them -Don't do laminate in a basement. Laminate is water resistant at best, but even that's kind of a lie. Go for LVP (laminate vinyl planking) instead. It's far more durable for a basement. -Dark floors show everything. They're nearly impossible to keep looking nice so just keep that in mind when picking flooring. -The brick column looks nice, don't worry about it -Stair modifications (even adding drawers under) should be done by a pro only. Never DIY stairs because there's a lot of structural math involved and local codes. -Pick paint after everything else is installed. It will really help you determine what the best colors are.

I thought I would share & show what I decided to do with upstairs landing...my husband said he didn’t want table in front of return vent so I went with smaller table I’m pleased with how it turned out love my new Home Sweet Home pic, put my Mother’s old chair with her throw ( l lost my Mother in Dec. 2016 to cancer the chair is very special to me) loving the new look on my landing. One picture is looking upstairs from my front door. Thank you all for your wonderful ideas & helping me to decide what I wanted to do.

Code requires fire preventive surfaces in any "enclosed accessible space", and therefore the space behind/under stairs is usually required to be firestopped. This is one online reference. https://homeguides.sfgate.com/should-put-sheetrock-underside-stairs-96129.html Based on your explanation I 'm not quite sure if/how it applies to your project. but maybe you can provide more explanation of what you are doing. For example, what do you mean by a previously enclosed staircase? Bruce