Agree-painting the inside would be nice. Another idea would be to remove the second shelf down, on each side, and put one, large piece of artwork in there. If you're contemporary, put a monochromatic collection on the rest of the shelves, like all ironstone or silver. If you're more traditional, a mix of collections and elements would work better. Lastly, if the books you do have aren't attractive, wrap them with brown shipping paper, or old maps. It's a great look!

Your lay-out, stairway and those wood floors are wonderful! You have a great set-up and assets as a base for your decorating. To make the wood floors look richer, I would consider a shade that brings out those wood tones. A very reliable color from the old Valspar (Lowe's, Ace, etc.) is one called "Amber White". You could use the lighter tone on most of your walls and consider a darker version of that same color in the entry area and heading up your stairs. Then, pull the darkest shade from your floors and do your stairway railings in that dark shade. It would be very nice to repeat the dark shade of the railings in frames on art and photos and possibly in a few items in your home. The pale amber shades will read "neutral", but will also feel warm and make your floors look rich. Amber plays very nicely with shades of gray, black, brown, blues, turquoise/aquas, white, ivory, dark teal and warm reds or rusts, so you would have a lot of options to add some additional colors to your color scheme. The additional advantage to a very pale amber is that you can still use your gray furniture without worrying about a gray wall color being the right shade to look nice with your furniture (the wrong direction and either the walls or the furniture can start looking brown, drab, dirty, blue or green)...and most wood tones look very good with pale amber shades. IF Valspar's "Amber White" is not quite right, heading to a shade to either side of it on the main card file would land you on the right shade. The Valspar color number for Amber White is 264-1 and the darker shade options would be 264-2, 264-3, 264-4 or 264-5. I wouldn't go any darker than that, so your stair rail and wood floor can have some impact. If the shade doesn't seem quite exact, consider colors within that Valspar range 263-1 or 265-1. Here's the link to see an online image of "Amber White" and related colors: http://m.valsparpaint.com/color-detail.php?id=101269&g=100009 Don't let the online color scare you, as it will look more colorful on line and even on the swatch than it is. On the wall, it can read like a warm white to pale tan to pale subdued amber, depending on the lighting in and around your home and area of the country. Good luck with your beautiful home. -Maggie (Real Design by Dine & Jergens LLC)

JD Catabas, I think an art grouping on that wall would be great. I don't think shelves around the corner will work well either. It it's primarily for storage, is there a way to rework the lower part of the peninsula to add a shallow cabinet there? Perhaps it could be carried all the way across the wall and serve as a buffet. Sometimes we live in a space so long, we don't really see it anymore. At first view, my initial response was that it was so busy, I couldn't take in everything. A simpler chandelier revealed the deer head, and moving the wall hanging exposed the wood paneling.

Thank you Patricia. I should mention there is a large lounger, coffee table and fireplace on the side, so floor space is minimal in front of the tv