Great advice chook, thanks so much. I'm thinking warm creamy shades to go with the dark wood furniture, but add texture like faux fur, satin, velvet, crisp cotton etc etc. Deep plush carpet. Generally luxe it up to the max. And definitely those bedside lamps of a lady holding a ball. The window is yet to go in, so I will make sure it's high enough to not overlap with the headboard. Good point how2girl, thanks. And yes, I toyed with the idea of a non-opening window for about a nanosecond, then summer hit here in Brisbane! Luckily there's a French door out to the deck in another wall, so we should get a good breeze going.

In my last house, after adding a living room (the area you see this side of the arch) and also updating bathroom etc I couldn't afford to reline the ancient walls in my little lounge (when I removed the purple wallpaper I found a mixmax of boards, gib, pinex, plywood and holes!) so I plastered walls all over with layers and layers of newspaper and wallpaper paste (papier mache), then after applying primer/undercoat I painted with 2 similar colours (rich reds in this case), and stippled the surface with a plastic bag. This made it look just very slightly textured like leather and successfully disguised the uneven surfaces. Gallons of gap filler filled the gaps between the old T&G ceiling boards and evened out the mismatched skirting and scotia. Again white paint on all the trims. Amazing what can be done when you have to make do! This was a great cosy little room! (Before photo is the 3rd one)

http://www.livingstyles.com.au/Arcueil-2-Drawers-Wooden-Bedside-Table/38438/ This one is 74cm tall but only 40cm wide. What style are you after?

strip part of the brick and mantle back to orignial if the exposed colour lines up with the room, strip the whole thing. Looks so well crafted not to pay respect to the past