Hello! I’m purchasing my first home and decided I could handle doing a few upgrades throughout the house (wish me luck!). I live in Las Vegas where this center/divider wall, and media niche is popular in a lot of homes.
This particular wall separates what is ‘designed to be’ the formal living space and the family living area. The left and right side walls may be load bearing, but they seem far too wide to be fully load bearing (they sound hollow, so I assume the width is for decorative purposes?). The media niche is low, and wouldn’t fit my console or tv, and my console is pretty low. I refuse to use a tv smaller than 65”, because NFL games wouldn’t be as much fun to watch.

In any case, I need some help with deciding on what to do with this weird wall.
If I open it up and put some decorative wainscoting around the load bearing structures, it would leave an awkward area between two living spaces. Then I’d struggle with how to setup the furniture in the rooms.
I typically mount my TVs, so I thought about cutting into the media niche, so the shelf didn’t stick out so much and I could possibly mount the TV.
I’m also not opposed to doing a fireplace in the middle maybe? The problem with that is the cable connections are located in the wall (on both sides - for the family and formal spaces).

Hopefully someone can offer a few ideas just by the picture.
Thanks in advance!

(I have a lot of work to do in the home, this is just one of the things that’s eating at me.)