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.

i would say, choose a theme just for that space and work around it! for example: maybe "asian" theme! paint the back wall RED or ORANGE, have a piece of buddha statue on the top most rack, you can use one shelve to just hold books with some decorative book ends, and instead of the chair, you can use the asian trunck boxes (if you google for asian trunks, you can see what i am talking about! - look for square boxes), this way, you can also tuck those boxes under the desk/shelf when not in use and the trunk could also be a storage for your files - you can also place a floor vase with some bamboo sticks - the asian theme would really work here as your wood is black/brown this would also turn out to be a peaceful writing space - enjoy!

Dear Crazyjunglite, please let me add some ideas for your space. I beleive that a nice combination of two curtains like the one with the blue and peach double curtains in the picture, will give you an eclectic feeling that matches to your painting. The combination of colors that I suggest is this blue with brown flares and the cream-peach taffetas, and the soft cream sheer behind. It will join all the rest beautiful items suggested by now: https://www.etsy.com/listing/163787105/blue-curtain-polyester-fabric-122-inches?ref=shop_home_active https://www.etsy.com/listing/163785041/light-yellow-beige-curtain-polyester?ref=related-6 https://www.etsy.com/listing/167660815/35-discount-for-one-pair-of-two-beige?ref=listing-shop-header-1 https://www.etsy.com/listing/167363693/ecru-sheer-curtains-fabric-118-inches?ref=shop_home_active

Yes, JudyG that's exactly the way people were using the taller table. Sort of a café look, or casual bar setting. One home had a beautiful huge kitchen all done in white with dark wood floors and RH style fixtures and hardware. Where you would normally think would be a traditional dining room, they had made it up with a large high table and 6 barstools. It almost looked like an extension of the island. Another one was in a very open and light kitchen. It was smaller and where you might think of putting a breakfast nook they had a round café-style table with four barstools. I liked it because it gave a more casual appearance. If people were sitting at them, they were on the same level as those working in the kitchen. Almost like a bar at the island for that effect, but with some separation.