Living room - organisation and decoration

This is my living room. I'm sat on the sofa which takes up the best part of the wall, but here is what I can see.

The window is a bay with a radiator.


The chimney has been badly sealed off so that will need to be fixed. I want rid of the inset alcove and cupboard underneath the picture as they are next to useless.


The room leads onto a more open space and the kitchen/diner area


I need help in choosing what to do with this in terms of furniture and decoration. Please suggest things!

I was going to apologise for the mess but it's Sunday afternoon and I have children.

Do not apologise!

We have similar alcoves and DH is currently building shelves to fit. We looked at buying 'proper' ones, but was too expensive, luckily he's quite handy so is currently muttering away!

Do you want to make more of a feature of the fireplace? We had a blocked up one in the playroom when we moved in and reinstated it to the point that it looks good but doesn't work! Or you could turn it into a feature alcove.

Reinstating:
https://www.facebook.com/christi.stone.104/videos/10151363920361001/?l=4057206652020068424

Before decoration and also with lots of mess.

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/417904_10151501158889123_1811473619_n.jpg?oh=e20e2748d664332f58c9eec5474d49da&oe=57496247

I'll try and take a picture of the living room later.

We have a beautiful fireplace in the next room, so I don't think we are looking to put one in the living room.

I love the rounded window and would do it simple with a few nice things. Here are some inspirational pics

I love the shelving in the second picture @Aeseldyr and I think that we are going to put shelving in like it as @autumnalgirl has done.

Hubby wants a corner sofa and ideally wants the bay window free for the tree at Christmas.

Ha ha ha my sweat hobby also has to have a big corner sofa because as he said its the best way to watch football - we had this compromise

I like it how it is and its not messy ! What don't you like about it ?

The tv could be wall mounted , and a different colour would make it a different room. When Leon stops his wall art I'm gonna do one of those pale blue or green , duck egg I think it's called ?

I would love a bay window to put a Christmas tree in!