A couple of questions: what’s your style & color palette in adjacent room? What is your budget? Once that’s determined, I’d recommend considering the following design changes, prioritizing ideas & meeting with a professional to make sure any changes work with elements that are remaining. I would stay away from dark trim. You have a good amount of it & I wouldn’t necessarily want to make that a focal point. Things to consider: Reworking the vanity area with either separate units or separate medicine cabinets, individual lighting & upgraded outlets. If you find that the tub isn’t used, you could change that out with a free-standing model. Keep in mind that will necessitate replacing the floor. Do you like the separate toilet room? Often this is eliminated to open up the room, or the wall in reduced to a 42” height. If you are interested in replacing tile, I would focus of differentiating color & size between the walls and floor. How is the shower functioning? Are the tiles, shower wall and shower head in good condition?

Hi Anaisava, it looks much better with the big carpet. I would remove the white small rug with zigzags, maybe you can find some space for it in your dining room...? I think you could also separate your brown sofa from the wall approx 10cm and hang some artwork above? How would it look?

Pat Brown a pot with something edible might be nice (the soil here is full of lead so we can only do planters, nothing edible in the ground.) I, too, considered a birdbath or something similar. You don't see so many birdbaths here in the city- I have no idea if the birds will actually use them or not (although we do have quite a lot of birds around here, including a random colony of brightly-colored monk parakeets that live in the cemetery up the block!) I could also do a low planter filled with succulents for the summer, although that would be seasonal as they won't survive the winters here. Husband desperately wants a japanese maple and that could grow in a planter, however I'm afraid it will end up casting too much shade and sucking up all the sun we get there (north facing, so just a few hours in the AM)

@cedblake: Why do you think laundry is a chore unless you think it is? It is a routine task just like cooking dinner or dusting or any other routine household item. Anyone can do it. Male, female, adult, teen. - so why the negative? I don't consider any "chore" to be negative. To me it's positive to have clean clothes and fresh clean sheets to sleep on, fresh clean towels to dry myself after a bath or shower. How can that be negative? Do you really need an architect or builder to make an area or room "bright and attractive"? A trip to a box store, selection of a fav colour, perhaps a change of lighting from incandescent to fun LED will make things brighter for you. Do you really need a smart laundry machine? Don't you know your own machine based on what setting you chose? I know if I do a normal setting, it'll take 46 minutes with the final rinse about 38 minutes. I do have a watch. And yes, anything that goes smart - $250.00 additional price is for a cheap smart machine because there is a whole lot more that goes on to make a machine smart. Then there is the higher costs of getting someone knowledgeable to fix it when something ain't so smart anymore. :) If laundry is a negative chore - take a break. Ask someone else in the household to do it for a week. Let go for a bit. And go down to your box store and pick up a can of paint. As for me, I look forward to doing my farm wash and mine. I like clean fresh clothes and my horses feel good with a clean blanket on instead of one with stickers and twigs when I put the saddle on top.