long room- Kitchen Designs - Page 1 - Decorating Ideas

This space is comprised of my smallish kitchen, dinette, and large living room. They are all in one long room. The living room portion is approx 18ft long x 15.5ft wide. The dinette is 8ft long by 10ft wide, and the kitchen is about 10x10 from wall to wall.

There is a sliding glass door in the dinette that has no covering at this point. I think vertical blinds say, "I give up" and curtains are too froofrooey for this space. I have a shaggy dog, so we're constantly going in and out that door and any type of fabric would quickly become faux fur decor.

There is a large, 13ft long bay window in the living room. There is an 18ft long wall opposite the bay window that is totally blank save for the couch sitting in front of it. I can't figure out how to arrange the furniture or decorate the windows and walls. I tried moving the couch as a divider between the living room and dinette, but it really closed off the space and made it feel crowded. I've also tried the couch in front of the window, but it made the room a bit dark, and made the long wall look more noticeably empty and sad. Moving the TV to the long wall was even worse - the wall looked bigger and the TV looked tiny!

The log-burning fireplace is essentially for decoration only. There is no gas line, and there isn't a trap to assist in cleaning up after burning logs. It's rather difficult to arrange furniture around, which is frustrating b/c it's never used. I did paint the mantle over the fireplace, which may not seem like much, but if you'd seen it before you'd be patting me on the back - lol.

I added an area rug, which I like, but the room feels like it's missing something, like style and character. ;-

This area is the main living space in my home. My teenage daughter and I spend almost all of our at-home together time in these rooms. We recently had my family over for Thanksgiving, and we were sorely lacking adequate seating. This is the case anytime someone wants to visit. The living room currently seats 3 comfortably or 4 snugly, which isn't very inviting when we want to have guests.

How can I get more (& comfortable! seating in here w/out making the space feel cramped or spending a fortune? Any suggestions for window treatments? How about the long empty wall? I'd love to hear your suggestions!