We knocked the wall down between the dining room and kitchen trying to introduce light.

Natural hessian is a colour I love but it is actually quite dark, so repainting with a lighter paint would definitely help. I think you should embrace the low light level around the fireplace and create a cosy seating zone for use in the evening with lamp etc with a large rug and your sofas rearranged so they are less ‘waiting room line up’ along the walls. Your other sitting room would be available for use during the day. Pulling the dark leather sofa off the back wall and adding pictures with glass or a large mirror will help bounce light into this area of the room. Your dark sofas in the dim section of the room and your white dining room set in the sun drenched other end of the room exacerbate the issue, so replacing furniture to tie it all in will help. A tip for the children’s toys is to cart everything out into a garage or store area and see which toys your child has an interest in playing with. Some will be moved back and quickly discarded so move them back 8nto storage. The ones of actual long term interest will keep coming back. A charity shop run at this time of year is a fantastic way of helping out others in the run up to Xmas. It was also let you see what toys are actually worth buying or asking Santa for!