One possibility would be to swap the living room and the dining room. Since the current living room is larger than the current dining room you could still keep some comfortable seating (couch and upholstered chairs?) against the front wall for a keeping room/dining concept. Then your new dining areas (kitchen and dining room) and living areas (living and drawing room) would have good flow between them, which would work well both for family and entertaining. You could also add some builtin bookshelves in the drawing room or new living room to create a library area to add another fun element to the living areas. These bookshelves could be against the long walls in the drawing room, around the window with a window seat in the living room (former dining room), or built to create some separation in the open area between the drawing room and living room/stair area. Your plan seems to show some sort of builtin there, but I'm not sure what it is.

You could also bring in some texture with bamboo sticks or decorative branches and help balance a bit the height of your room with small scale furniture. Spray paint them if you find the perfect size and shape but they aren't the color that you need. Ikea carries white decorative stalks for a very good price. the ones in the 1st picture hold well with small kids around and you don't need a vase for them. there are washi paper or crinkly paper floor lamps with a soft beautifully diffused glow For a budget friendly version check ikea or target http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80028552/

I think a comfortable distance between the island and the counter is around 42". It seems that you have only 30" between your cook top and the counter. I might be a little too tight. The wall between the entrance and the kitchen could be 4' long instead of 6', you would then be able to move the island a foot which would give you more room between the cook top and the island. Could you switch the location of the toilet and vanity in your dad's bathroom so your enter facing a vanity instead of a toilet which is a lot nicer.

OK... but the wire wont be lower as it is fixed now. The wire in the pics below is the wall facing each other. They were leveled on equal height but the beam on one wall makes it seem a little above. But i think you guys are absolutely right that up and down lights wont look good there. I think you are right about down lights lessismoore. Would it look good if i go with two different lights on opposite walls??? it would look odd right.