People like to look out the window. Get rid of the bookcase (other post) and move the chairs so people can look out the window and at the artwork. No one reads the old work-related books in faculty lounges.

On to making the room look better... The art piece should be hung lower. Five inches above a large piece of furniture or centered 5' above the floor. When I've had offices in the past, I used table lamps to soften and make them more welcoming places where people wanted to linger. Overhead lighting is harsh, doesn't help people look better, and is really just ambient (to help you see to get into the room.) The torchiere lamp is a fail because it throws light on the ceiling, not where someone is reading.z I would try to come up with two larger side/end tables, two lamps and a rug. Someone mentioned donations on your other page, but then you risk having an even worse mismatch of items.

I got a rug, and curtains. Will lower the artwork, just haven’t had time and am focused on arranging the furniture first. I’ll add one more painting to the wall you see immediately upen entering the room. Working on finding matching end tables from a thrift store. Also need a planter for the dumb cane plant I got. Here’s how it looks now

I’ll also change out that horrible lamp! I didn’t put that there. They literally grabbed random stuff from storage and told me to make it work. Thank goodness for the 300$ budget

The best spot to read in any room is where the light is coming over your shoulder and lighting the pages of your book. And a room looks inviting if the seating is arranged as a conversation area, i.e. people directly facing people.

So I'd put the sofa with its back to the window, pulled about 3 feet from the window. 2 chairs facing it. A coffee table in between. The small stand between the 2 chairs.

This arrangement will also hide the ugly radiator, while still allowing it to function. If there is any decent view out of the window, pull up the blinds and open the sheers.

From the books that I can see, I think they're discards from the professors. Nobody is ever going to read them, or they'd keep them in their own offices. They're decor items. For example, nobody is every going to want a 4" wide French dictionary - we have the internet. See what you can get rid of, and we'll help you arrange them. Do you still have the bookshelves that were there originally? Those large shelves are not bookshelves, they're storage shelves. The spaces between the shelves are much smaller for bookshelves. Get rid of the big shelves and use the 2 smaller shelves that were in the room. We'll see where the wood shelf and the white shelf look best once the sofa and chairs are in place.