Thanks for feed back everyone I do mean that the furniture is drab And dark The photo was taken a couple days ago in Melbourne ,so its dark and gloomy otherwise its quite a light room , my walls are creamy and i feel outdated . My husband repainted in the same colour and now i feel like nothing has changed I should of changed the paint colour I have also seen on here white walls and ceiling with painted skirting in white but I'm afraid my husband would have a heart attack if i asked him to do all of that because it would have to go right through the house Im so confused with what to do I do have wooden stairs and balustrade as well So whatever gets changed in living room will have to flow through the house Please help with any ideas

Timber everyday of the week for me. Probably had timber awning windows (or double hung) when originally built so I'd go back to that. Yes, more maintenance but really its not that much. We have timber decks that need oiling and weatherboards that need painting. Grass gets cut every week or two so to paint or oil a window every year or two isn't a biggy. Cost wise quality aluminium is comparable to timber in a lot of cases. Shop around, you be surprised. A client had some custom made timber windows made and they ended up comparable to aluminium. Once its all said and done they both will still work as intended. By the way don't fall the cliche of 'modernising the house'. People used to modernise Federation cottages now we pull all that 'modern' rubbish out... We'll be (are) doing the same to 1950/60's houses, we reinstate the original stuff but to newer standards. I'd do some research and renovate sympathetically but using modern alternatives, even down to paint colours. It would look awesome!!

Just thought I would add a couple of rough ideas without drawing the floor plans, happy to do if any of this is interesting to you 1) Close in the upstairs rumpus from the passage way with full height sliding pocket doors,, and turn the top of the staircase into this space as this would cure a lot of traveling noise problems, also stairs would be safer into the now study. Add two skylights into existing passageway, extend dining across the passageway Make the current study the 15yr olds bedroom, he's soon to be 18yrs and will appreciate being near the front door away from the girls etc. 2) is slightly different Your lovely sideboard will fit into both dining spaces cheers

1 -- leave the existing lights , or maybe go bigger but in a similar style . I like those string ball ones -- you could possibly even have some fun and go for a bold colour , depending on the rest of your house . 2 -- wallpaper the feature wall in an 'interesting' burgundy or even reddish/pink pattern , maybe some scrolls or maybe with a fine gold stripe embedded . 3 -- if you want to stay white or any of the 19472 variations through to beige , add a large colourful abstract painting -- at least 1.5metres x 1.2 . 4 -- that 'roof step' where 1 of the lights is looks out of place -- I'd paint the 2 sides in a charcoal/real deep steel blue ( darker than the carpet but still showing some homage to it ) . I doubt it would darken the stairwell too much , but it would look more balanced and cohesive . The bricks are 'interesting' and doing anything with them could be tacky IMO , the stairs and floors are fine as you have worked out , it just needs a feature wall or focus .