Living room help please!

[Goostacean]

What would you do with this room? Please, let your imagination run wild! The only constraints are: we want carpet, will be keeping the fireplace (but likely will attempt to strip it back to the marble...), keeping the shutters, DH wants pale/pastel tones. THANK YOU. There is only so much inspiration Pinterest can give me, it turns out!

Without knowing what you like, it's difficult to say, but with a room that large & bright, I'd go dark walls, cream or natural carpet, strip back the fireplace, keep the shutters & paintwork white. A huge patterned red to introduce a couple of bright highlight colours & pick up those in cushions, throws etc. Lots of big plants in interesting pots

Rug, not red!

Are you keeping the navy and orange sofas? If so it guides the colours you choose to some extent. You could keep walls etc neutral but have a much larger rug where you add a splash of colour. There are lots of bright (or alternatively distressed) multi-coloured geometric ones about at the moment.
Tie in chosen accent colour with cushions and a piece of artwork.

Thanks for your reply! Should have said, I’m going for a so-called “modern Victorian” vibe. Thinking of putting up some period coving, debating whether to paint the bookcases the same colours as the walls...?

It's a lovely big room, so yes you'd get away with period coving, but keep it fairly simple & don't over do it. I'd still say dark walls such as french navy, or a deep khaki & light carpet & white woodwork.

If the bookcase is free standing, I'd go with a light wood such as oak. Otherwise if it's what's already there, then yes white is good.

Are you getting new sofas or keeping those, if new, a couple of chesterfields would look great

Paint all walls tge dark colour though, including the walls of the bookcase

Thanks! Unfortunately it has to be pastel/pale (which is a shame in a beautiful big room like that, but DH insists and he makes very few demands so I try to acquiesce!)... We have a sofa and an armchair and a footstool, but they’re not in that photo. They’re a sort of beige... I was thinking of a nice sage green for the walls?

On a homes programme i saw they had painted the interior of the bookcases but left the outside white. It looked good.

If pastel shades I would go Dulux Jurassic Stone (lovely green) or chic shadow / perfectly taupe (grey). Dark wood and white paintwork go very nice with these. Second the massive rug suggestion. Although I would go plain if keeping two different coloured sofas. A big plush grey one.

Came back to say we’ve stripped the fireplace and it’s marble! So that’s an added complication, I suppose. I love the Jurassic Stone- that’s exactly the sort of thing I was aiming for. The problem is that we have a large painting above the fireplace in all blue tones. Green on the walls definitely won’t work, and I don’t want to get rid of the painting. But if the walls are a classic “parchment” sort of colour, with beige sofas and a cream carpet.... it’s all going to look very blah.