Hi Catherine, You have a lovely open plan kitchen and lounge, but as you say, it lacks punch and interest. Since you're stuck with the stainless steel kitchen for the time being, you need to work with it and have some fun. A symmetrical arrangement of stainless steel shelves either side of the splash back for the cooker would allow you to put up interesting bottles, plants, china, etc. What about painting this wall a bright colour like Seville Orange from Crown and the other walls in natural white. You could also paint the base of the island in the Seville Orange. In the seating area, use the orange colour and some others like plum or blue-grey in fabric patterns, have cushions made up for the seating area. Also an area rug large enough for the front feet of your sofas and the coffee table to sit on with colour would brighten up this area. It's unfortunate that the TV is blocking a French window. Can it be moved somewhere else, perhaps the bay if the bottom shutters are never opened? Instead of half of the bay window having plantation shutters, I would recommend a second upper row, which could be folded back or, if you don't need coverage for privacy on the upper windows, have an interesting, colourful valance. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=valance+and+plantation+shutters+for+a+bay+window&biw=1516&bih=839&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIzdu7xO-FyAIVh0gUCh1aigXI&dpr=0.95#tbm=isch&q=valance++for+a+bay+window&imgrc=SjLxqYYGnQmhlM%3A

Like that idea and my flooring is around the same shade of wood. I'm not sure what state the walls will be in under the paper as all the other rooms we have done half the plaster fell off but we are prepared for re plastering it is south facing living room with a big window. I do not know if to re paper with a textured paper then paint or just plaster flat walls and paint that is why I'm open to ideas.

Thank you for your suggestion, I think that's what my husband would want. He would prefer the conventional appearance of doors. I can't take a photo as the doors have not yet been installed. I'm wondering if self-adhesive stickers applied to gloss paint would be easy to remove if I needed to revert to plain if husband disapproved!

Oops! Sorry guys, I completely forgot to update this! Well, we did it. We went for the bonkers cat wallpaper and invested in some 'for life' sofas. We used Martin and Parker in Derby. They make bespoke sofas for not much more that you would pay at Next or M&S at significantly better quality too. We couldn't do the room until we had the windows replaced, so it did take a bit of time as our window guy (Stuart Harrison, who was fantastic and has done an amazing job) was not able to do them until mid summer 2021. Here are some pics of the work and the final result. It is really scary with a big ol' hole in your house! Lovely new sashes with architrave. Sacrilege I know but we did go for plastic, but they are really well made and look good. Windows in so starting to do the woodwork Making sure we cannot see pale lines if the wallpaper shrinks! How the heck do we do these corners? Carefully! Nearly there. Now we need to remember how to do school trigonometry to put the curtain poles up in the bay. :D All done :) Different angle from the sofa. We found some lovely art deco style lamps to go either side of the sideboard. The new radiators we chose. Moving the radiators into the bay from the wall opposite was not hugely fun as we had to run the pipework through the cellar. Pipes all very much lagged though! The sofa fabric was from a designer duo in Wirksworth called Blackpop. Lovely ladies and glorious designs https://www.blackpop.co.uk. I am somewhat pleased that the pic of this sofa on their instagram account has the most amount of likes of any of their stuff! :D The leather on the chesterfield is so soft, it is lovely. Martin and Parker did them for us. https://www.martinandparker.co.uk/ For comparison with the original post pic. And here is an obligatory cat picture. :) It won't be to everyone's taste but we love it. The room is now cosy, warm and a genuine pleasure to be in. Thank you everyone for all the advice, support and comments. On to the kitchen next, just contacted you @OnePlan (Concept planners) on that. :)