Design Trouble

Good afternoon...this is Kyle again...I don't post often, but I have a problem and I am hopeful that the readers (Erin, mom(s), Sean?....maybe Miranda? Rebecca?) can help. This is not a REAL problem, but a design problem.

Our main floor is huge so we separated our living space into a dining room and living room (or family room...I'm really not sure what the difference is). These spaces are separated by the fireplace which creates a design challenge. Now, if I had the budget to allow two teams of hopeful HGTV hosts to attack this problem, that would be great, but I only have you. What should we do? What should we buy? How should we arrange?


Please excuse the poor quality of the following cell phone pictures.

I am open to buying new furniture, but I am not ok with replacing the entertainment center (I sunk 20 hours of my life into assembling this IKEA masterpiece).

As you can see, the main problem is functional seating that flows.  I hate myself for typing that, but I would hate myself more if I were to continue to live with an angled couch.

Any idea is acceptable, but a complete design with manufacturer part numbers, prices, and URLs (for ease of ordering) is preferred.  Measurements available upon request...measurements of the room that is.  Katy and I do not make a habit of publishing any other measurements.

Thanks!

Home Improvements

We added some (real!) plants to the back "yard".  The idea here is that you are so drawn to the hanging flower pot and steed holly plant that you do not even see the cable and electrical boxes.  I think the back is complete, except for our free standing hammock that may make an appearance this summer.

On top of that, our front is complete now too!  We had this work done professionally, adding a stone walkway, a wall, and a couple of new plants.  I am really happy with how this turned out.  The only bad news is that we found out our tree is dying, which makes me really sad because I love the tree!  It has some insect disease, but we bought some insect disease killing spray and hope to make the tree last at least a few more years.

Home Improvements

I have been so busy with our home improvements, that I have not even had time to post any pictures.  Here is what we did:

Painted!  It took me a long time to commit to a color, and to convince Kyle that we can tackle painting our huge main floor ourselves, but we finally got rid of the blue/yellow combo.  I am really happy with the color and how it all turned out.  My only issue now is that rest of the paint needs updating now.  However, doing the main floor was a lot of work and I need a break.

Bought a new rug!  I really wanted a round rug for this area, but we could not find one we liked and I feel like we looked everywhere.  So, we settled on this greyish rug from Ikea.  And, got an ottoman!  It took us a long time to decide on an ottoman and we ended up with this one that is on wheels.  It is really nice, because we can roll it around and use it to hold stuff, as a foot rest, or additional seating.  Yes, it is white, still not sure if that was the best choice. 

Bought stools!  These are from Ikea as well and I really like them.  I hope to go back and get the taller ones for the other bar area in the kitchen.  I think they will look even better once I have my all white kitchen I am dreaming of.  Someday...

Got a bar!  We have a huge kitchen, but we have even more kitchen stuff.  So, we bought a bar to store liquor and glasses.

Put up blinds!  We really want plantation shutters, but cannot afford them right now.  So, we got some nice wood blinds to keep the heat and peepers out. 

I think that is it for now.  That is enough though.