Depends what your design skills are like. I carefully trawled through dozens of curtain photos on Houzz, selecting the ones I liked. When I showed them to the curtain maker, she carefully explained how that not only did they not suit the rooms or my house (I have old-fashioned tastes in a modern house, was her way of putting it!) but in some cases they wouldn't even fit the windows. My advice is thus to get some advice from an expert first - you can always ignore it later, but it may save you some time. I'm now very happy with all the curtains suggested by the curtain lady - and I still have my dream curtains (pooled silk with swags, romans with fake swags . . .) in my Houzz album . . .

Good quality shutters are incredibly expensive. I put a set of sheers and a set of block-out curtains up when we first got our place - the sheers provided a little bit of privacy during the day, the block-outs made it cozy at night and helped block the westerly sun hitting in the afternoons. The only thing you find with sheers is that you have to have to wash them - they go a little grey. Depending upon where you live, make sure that your curtains are an inch off the floor - we live on a main road with all the dirt and grime that comes with it and it just keeps your curtains looking that bit better longer.

Bathroom, change the shower screen and taps, get rid of the gold. New handles on the cupboards. The changing of the screens is not too expensive. Use semi frameless grass. All the gold trim gone will really brighten it up. Fresh coat of paint. We lived with a terrible old shower screen because I thought it would cost too much. It was $1500 installed. I can't believe I lived with the other terrible one so long. I changed when put house on market and the taps as well. Taps were from Bunnings not the cheapest ones but not too expensive either. Bathroom updated in an instant, I thought why didn't I do this for myself. We also put in a new basin as the old one was plastic and I always hated it. Your vanity with new taps much nicer. Welcome back to aus

Hi Sasha. What a great space with lots of scope to move your furniture around, and all that natural light! The first thing I noticed was the dark curtains drawing my eye to the dark window frames. Although you clearly can't do anything about the latter, I would definitely change the former. My go-to place for quick affordable pieces is Ikea and my advice would be to measure up the windows and head for their roller blinds and curtains. If you put 3 or 4 block-out blinds up under that pelmet you can control how much light and/or privacy you'd like and by replacing those dark curtains with a lighter linen variety, you'll add a contemporary feel to the room and bring the attention away from the [I assume] aluminium frames. You could get enough to span the entire width or just a couple for the ends. Splash out on a generous tall houseplant like a [dragon tree[(https://www.houzz.com.au/photos/midcentury-bedroom-midcentury-bedroom-philadelphia-phvw-vp~1905898) for any area's that you might like to add height - I think we tend to fall into the trap of having two visual levels in a room, one being the furniture which tends to end at about hip-height, and the other being art or such for eye level. Both of these are horizontal lines but a tall voluminous plant adds a vertical element like a standard lamp. I'd move yours away from the corner though and place it against a larger expanse of wall. If it has to stay in a corner, put something tall behind/beside it like a narrow book case, or an artwork that's centered with the lampshade. Then it looks like it has purpose. Also, I would move the sofa away from the wall and add a console table as a place to display treasures. Can you swap the long chaise part of the sofa to the other end? Doing this would define that area more and open up the view of your outdoor area. In fact, I'd be tempted to rotate the sofa 90deg to face the windows and put a sofa table/book case behind it for extra storage. I assume that's your TV along the wall to the right - you could shuffle it down towards the window corner and angle it towards the sofa [that would reduce glare on the screen from the window too]. If you do this, you'll create an area for the dining table if you want. I'm not sure from the picture if your table is currently against a wall or if there's more room off to the right that we can't see. If it's against the wall, I'd be moving it across to the left to about where that rug currently sits [a bit further this way though - if that makes sense!] Here's an example of what I'm thinking. That's where the rugs come in. I'd be using two large rugs to both define the areas and protect the carpet. One under the dining table and one under the sofa. These are both areas where the carpet can quickly get grubby! Large artworks are, as you say, a challenge but they don't have to be hung. If you have a large vertical canvas you can prop it against the wall or sit smaller works up on a narrow table [another use for that console table!]. Try to find [or even make] some large canvasses that have a lot of white in them and retire that red pic in the black frame for a while. If you go for the light/white curtains then a complimentary artwork will help to freshen the whole area. Hope I've been able to help a bit!