I think most people would say they want to see the whole room before commenting. If the room in general needs more light, one possibility would be adding white recessed can lights. One solution for the fireplace is two "eyeball" style recessed lights in the ceiling in front of it. These can be angled to spotlight artwork above the fireplace. The lights themselves are inexpensive, but you would need an electrician to install them.

good point on seeing the whole room. i will take a better picture of the area tomorrow morning with the nice natural light.
i LOVE the idea of recessed lights if we were staying long-term, but they aren’t something we can do as a “sell the house” project.

Hearing you say "everything else is changed out" and noticing the Decora style switches, it might be a good resale tactic to have the entire house up to the same level. Recessed lighting would certainly be much more dynamic as the FP is usually the money shot of the Living/Family Room.

Usually, 2 lights are enough spread as an accent. However, I see you have a centrally located ceiling box. To make it easier without rewiring possible homeruns, require a coverplate, or try to match the textured ceiling, I would use 3 total lights: 1 to replace the ceiling box and 2 flanking lights. I would use 3" remodel gimbal cans:

I would then build a stained wood mantel out of 1x pine. Both lighting and mantel would be $100 total as DIY.

For staging my preference would not be a mirror, but lean a generic large canvas picture on the mantel.

while i believe you are right about the lighting (and in line with comment above), i think my husband will have a heart attack if i suggest this :) because we have a lot of other things higher priority on our to do list. i'll save this until the very end when we have the rest of our list done, and see what time we have left.

if we can't get those recessed lights in, is there value in switching the track light to something more modern/sleek? i can change out a fixture much faster than adding new lights.

i looked at these Alsy lights as an option.

If you stick with a track light, I would buy a 3-light fixture (2-light if available) with heads as small as possible, white in color, and aim them at the FP. They are already competing with the ceiling fan, so blending them in would be better.

We agree with @3onthetree especially since you're selling. Of course, best option would be to install recessed lights in the whole room but under the circumstances you don't want to spend much money on the update.

I appreciate everyone's thoughts! there are other areas of the house that need updates still (it's built in 1982). but i've upgraded the old plastic/fluorescent lighting to fresh LED fixtures, nothing fancy but it looks 1000x better. if i were buying this home today, i would prioritize updating the lighting to some LED recessed lights all over ASAP (which is what we're doing in our new house!). these track lights are the final lighting eye-sore and i'd like them gone! my focus is making our home feel warm, welcoming, and fresh. New owners can move in and feel comfortable if they're not ready to tackle upgrade project yet, but the canvas is ready for it when they are...

Search modern track lighting on Pinterest as there are lots of options and based on your room and budget, can more easily narrow down.

@homechef59 - wow this is a great idea that i hadn’t thought of. thanks!

Or a wafer LED recessed look a like.