Can you post a room plan? It would be really helpful to have dimensions etc. Are you skimming the ceiling? Taking off the dado rail?

Blown Vinyl ( yuck?), No to the Dado. Will wait for the room plan!

The ceiling probably will be bumpy but skimming will cost a couple of hundred quid and totally be worth it if you have the budget. I am speaking from experience...

@Lee Foster Some artworks for those lovely wall spaces perhaps?! Have a browse through our collection and see whether anything stands out. We also have curators who can help you choose art for the space if you like. You can even rent the artworks if you want to try them out first.

With the L shaped sofa you can hide a lot of stuff behind the window end! Ikea do an excellent box shelving units where you can put all the small stuff into canvas cartons which fit into each box, leaving a shelf on the top for displaying pictures, ornaments, out of children's reach.

the space isn't so small that it needs to be shoved against the walls. pull it forwards, at the very least a foot on each side

This is lovely sized room with loads of potential! We have just redecorated our living room and I would suggest the following in order of priority:

• Remove picture rails (this is really fun with a big hammer and wedge!)
• Skim walls (most likely will be necessary after above)
• Skim ceiling (you won't regret doing this)
• Paint walls with brilliant white undercoat
• Change curtain rail or paint white
• Paint all woodwork with white gloss paint
• Paint or ideally hang a new white door and paint frame white
• Rip up carpet (do you know if it's floorboards underneath?)
• Sand floorboards and varnish

Once these steps are done, I would recommend living in the room for a bit before making any further decisions. It will help with choice of colours and leave breathing room financially. Although, I would highly recommend a Flokati rug, they make a a room look lovely a snug!

Others have given you some pretty good ideas. Go white on walls and paintwork, including your new window. Just because it's a good hardwood doesn't mean it can't be painted. There are no rules!

To hide the buggys away (you do seem to have quite a few!) why not make a decorative folding screen to stand in front of them or create bifold doors which later can hide all the children's toys. They can be painted in colours to coordinate with the curtains; yellow, grey, blue and will balance the opposing ends of the room. Or you can make wall to wall bookshelves/ storage and hang full length curtains in the three main colours.

I would lose the dado rail & skim walls & ceilings. Get new curtains in a grey or duck egg blue but heavier lined fabric & not the thread through curtain pole ones. New light maybe large pendant. Change tv cabinet to something more modern & not a corner one. Large rug. Change family photos to black & white or group more photos together. Good luck.