About the lighting, I try to turn off "Add ceiling lights" whenever I take pictures.
I just took that a couple of minutes ago, although I will say that I did turn down the hanging lights from 25% in the earlier shot to 15%.
Larger version.
I had tried posting this picture of the powder room a couple of days ago, but for some reason I kept getting some other picture instead (I think it was a problem of some kind on TinyPic's side). Because of the fireplace's wall (in the living room on the other side) some of the brickwork was showing, so I ended up making the one wall in here as exposed brick (I think I need to make that wall Matte instead of Shiny as it looks kind of strange to me). I have the virtual visitor standing in the one corner (with the bump-out to the left of the virtual visitor and out of sight), looking to the mirror. You can see one side of the window.