Contemporary White Balanced Living/Dining Area

I need help with living room dining room combination. This space shares an open half-wall with a small kitchen. The main entrance to this area is through the kitchen doorway. The front door is rarely used.

As people enter this space, they walk through the kitchen and see the far dining room wall. This wall is a focal point from the living room.

Once in the living room/dining room, the focal points are the fireplace and front window. Both windows (living room and dining room) have nice views to the outdoors (more rural setting look). The front and back yard are nice features to our home and we like to look out these windows. We have mixed feelings about the fireplace. It is from the 1950s and takes up a lot of the wall, daunting the room, but does have character. My husband thinks it is an oversized abonination. It is probably structural to the house and made of granite so we are not sure what to do about it.

Due to the room layout, we can't find anyplace other than the top of the mantle for the TV. It also has in ceiling surround sound in the room.

We spend a lot of time at the dining room table using it for meals, as a work-place and for family games of cards.

There are outlets on the wall designed for picture lights - one in the dining room and one to the left of the living room window.

We like to sit in the morning sun to read. It hits the living room on the left side of the window a few feet into the living room.

There are 2 to 4 of us in the living room at a given time watching TV.

We are also challenged by the space behind the current couch and the wall behind it. It seems like a dead space.

The space overall is fairly small without high ceilings. We want a space that fits our needs and feels stylish and cozy and fits a house built in the 1950s. Our style is transitional with a touch of contemporary.

west elm, crate and barrel, boston interiors, circle furniture