I'm planning to get my living room redone, and would appreciate some outside perspectives on what would be best. I've attached photos from various angles so you can see the full room. It's pretty large (6m in length), so there's a lot of space to play with. The few furniture items you can see don't necessarily need to stay (though the piano most likely will, unless it goes to another room).
The one thing I'm not planning to change is the original parquet floor, and the only furniture items I'm intending to put in this room are (probably) the piano, and plenty of comfy seating with some side tables etc. I've toyed with the idea of having some kind of dining/board games table in here too, but I'm not sure there's a good place for it, and it's not essential. No TV in this room, and I'm not big on knick-knacks/display items etc. Feel free not to read the rest and just look at the photos, but otherwise, the main questions in my mind are:
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What is the best location for a radiator? I am planning to strip out the current pipe system, which includes a horrible old skirting board radiator thing that I can't wait to get rid of (you can see in some of the photos that I've taken the cover off parts of it already to reveal the disgustingness within - and those things on the floor are the covers) and the radiators under the windows. I'm thinking of replacing these with one long pretty column radiator along the back (internal) wall. The only alternatives I can think of are along the wall the piano is currently on, or the two tall narrow walls opposite the door. I think the back wall minimises disruption from both a visual and furniture perspective, because I can't think of anything I would put against that wall, and it won't be in your face as you enter the room.
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What should I do with the windows? The current ones definitely need replacing, and I'd like to minimise the amount of in-between/connector bits and maximise the amount of light. One thought is to replace each of the four main window bits with a single pane of glass, then have openers above the doors. Will that be enough openers? Another option would be to knock down the two walls either side of the door (but not the diagonal walls) and make a larger windowed area. I'm a little worried about potentially regretting this though, as it's hard to visualise what it would look/feel like. Any thoughts on why this would be a good/bad thing?
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What should I do with the fireplace? The house is 1930s, and I can't figure out if the fire surround is from that era, and/or if I should keep it. Either way, I don't like the part below the mantelpiece, or the hearth, so they need changing. There used to be a gas fire in the current hole, and I can see that there was some additional brickwork put in to bring it down to this size, so it might be relatively painless to widen it again if there's any reason to. I don't want to put any kind of actual fire in there, so it will be purely decorative.
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What should I do with the lighting? There are currently four ceiling light fittings, in each of the four corners. At the least, I want to change the fittings. But would you change the positions, or have something different entirely?
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What colour(s) should the room be? It's north-facing, so isn't the lightest at the best of times, so I assume light colours would be best. I saw this and thought it looked really nice: https://www.direct-fireplaces.com/gallery-crown-arched-cast-inset.html - would it be weird to have just that fireplace wall painted something like that? I'm feeling so overwhelmed with all the options.
Thanks if you've read this far. I know there's loads of inspiration on the web, but I'm really struggling to get a coherent plan in my mind, so I'm hoping there may be things that are obvious to other people when you can see the layout.