Can you add a sketch depicting the room - add dimensions, openings, fixed items (fireplace), etc.

Why are you not having a dining table?

A separate dining room is not necessarily a formal dining room. It depends on how it is furnished. Assuming these are the previous owner's possessions, getting yours in there should be a big step in making the room yours.

We don’t need a formal dining area, we already have a large dining kitchen.

Plan of the room

Pool table?

It doesn't have to be formal just because someone wrote "formal" on the plan!

In one of our previous houses we had a pool table in the "formal" living room and in another house we had our main TV room in the "formal" living room.

In two different houses I have used part of the ”formal” living living/dining space as a music room. It is functional and a nice hangout space with comfortable seating. If you can think of a use that supports an at home hobby and can be an overflow socializing area it works great. I have two pianos, my husband has four guitars, and then we also have a kid who plays violin and other random instruments. Although primarily a music room, my kids’ grandparents prefer to hang out there and chat as opposed to the great room. I also have a hidden TV in the space so it is super multipurpose.

It depends on how far you want to go. Remove the fireplace. Take down the wall etween this space and the kitchen/dining. Reconfigure the now larger open concept space. You'll need to do a full floorplan to explore that.

We definitely want to make the space our main living room. Don’t need dining in this space as we already another dining space

What activities do you want to have take place in this main living space? Will you watch TV here? How many of you will hang out here, when, what time of day? Will you entertain here? Read, play games? Does the fireplace work, will you use it, do you want it to be a focal point or just disappear? Do you have a need for groups of seating? A main hang out area and also a reading area? First define the function and then we can help you figure out the layout.

Forget the formality of it all. This large rectangular living space could just as well be in a contemporary home.

This was similar to what I had envisioned. Fireplace works so we would want to utilise that

Get rid of those ceiling light fixtures and put up something more contemporary.

Change the carpet to hardwood.

Remove the window cornice.

Your furniture doesn’t need to be centered on the fireplace. The FP is simply a feature in the room

I think that getting rid of the rose pink wall to wall carpet would go a long way towards taking out the stuffy never used look of the space. That space looks like no one really uses it like that and has all the personal charm of a hotel lobby, but not, of course the Super 8. So stuffy and formal! Put in a sturdy floor and more causual furniture . And go lighter on the window treatments. Those look so out dated and so cold and formal and almost entirely unremarkable.