Agree, take them down. If you are painting, I would paint the ceilings..

Thanks for the comments. What would you do with the space afterwards? Any ideas?

take them off ,and the ones on left sticking out, paint the wall, color depend on the area need more pics of the space like..sides and is this main entry?

http://houzz.com/photos/47916
You could break up the wall like this -

http://houzz.com/photos/518970

http://houzz.com/photos/59477

Yes it is the main entry way. Closer to the entrance are inbuilt storage shelves. Those have to stay for now, but would not mind painting. Will add more photos in a minute.

More photos from both sides of the aisle.

Definitely take down the shelves. The shutter doors on the cupboards (and the cupboards themselves) aren't helping either. I you need the storage, look into replacement doors (e.g. ikea) with simpler lines to reduce the clutter. Your architraves around the doors are pretty - maybe think about a contrast colour to bring these out? When in doubt, hang pictures to create a bit of a gallery. You can stack to take advantage of the enormously high ceiling!

Another vote to remove all of those shelves on brackets! Can you also lose some/all of the storage closets to regain your once grand entry hall? Could storage be relocated to other rooms if you purge everything non-essential to your life? Leave trim white-ish and choose another neutral with just enough color to accent the trim.

You could leave space bare, or hang a grouping of picture/mirrors as suggested above. I think a nice cool color on the ceilings would be just enough contrast.

I would give preference to a punch of color to the door, maybe brown and brown trim for baseboards and the strips on ceiling and put a curtain all the way cross/high above the window to make the window look larger than it is and draped to sides and paint/ trim the little alcoves or whatever you call them with color ,wish I had a pic to what I imagined,if I find one i'll post

This looks like a very interesting house would like to see other archit. designs of it ..yes and I love HGTV lol

Use space as an art gallery area

Keep shortest and collect old canisters from the 50's. also use them as storage. Just a thought.