Help! What to do with this shot?

This shot was taken inside the Stone House on the Manassass Battlefield Park in Virginia. This is in the main room of the house. I like the simplicity of the scene but not sure about the colors. The white wall dominates but I'm not sure if the warmth from the broom, barrel, floor, and logs in the fireplace help. I have tried B&W which I like but that almost feels too cold. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

Exciting possibilities here. Many ways to go. Me, I’d go minimalist, try cropping elements out on each side and stick to fireplace and key. Great potential for subtle changes of white and soft colors. Nuance would be the key. Have fun with it. Try things. I’ll bet you come up with something. Try black and white but I have a feeling color will work nicely and be a little different. This should be yours. It feels personal.

I really like this image. But... I wish the frame was larger so the key accents of the barrel, the broom,and the (wood?) box were not pushed out to the very fringes. The image wants some clarity, local contrast, and a bit of saturation. It also is in need of some vertical perspective correction. However, it does not have room in the frame for any correction artifacts while keeping the accent items intact. This is oh, so very close, but without room to work. I tested a square crop, full height, with the poker on the left-hand 1/3 line. It works, but the fireplace opening is still too close to the bottom of the frame.

 

You're right about the warming effect of the various accents, but no matter what I do they still reside on the extreme fringes of the image. Perhaps radical surgery is in order? The three critical and engaging elements which are not on the extreme edges are the poker, portions of the stone and plaster fireplace, and the fireplace opening itself. If we take these three compositional elements and and maximize their expression we get something like this:

 

 

This does not have the warmth and inclusiveness of the original image, but it is stronger from a composition standpoint. The white surfaces become an expressive yet neutral background for the very sculptural poker, while the darkness of the fireplace opening both balances the composition and adds sufficient context to strengthen the poker as the primary subject. I don't think this is the end-all, be-all of this image, but I believe it suggests an approach where concentrating on a few, central, and compositionally key elements could bring this to a higher level of artistic expression. (No offense, I hope, to the OP?)

Sam and Dave (not the singers I assume?),

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. Dave, I agree about not quite wide enough. The only cameras I had were a Sigma dp2 Merrill (45mm equiv lens, not quite wide enough) and a 4x5 with 135 and 210 mm lenses that I couldn't set up in the house anyway. I'll have to go out to the house again with a wide angle. In the meantime, I'll try some more playing around with it following your suggestions. Thanks.

not quite wide enough.

I understand the problem only too well. And, in popular tourist locales, when one does have the requisite UWA, there are always people getting in the way. Best wishes on this. This subject has some real possibilities. That wonderfully textured negative space just begs to be used creatively.:)

This is why I want a 14mm lens.

 

BUT, I also see several possible photographs--the broom, the barrel and the hook, for three.

I think that you have a lot to work with here but you are going to have to work pretty hard and smart. I think that it should be B&W but you will have to treat the warmer areas on the left and right differently from the white washed wall and you have to open up the firebox. This makes me think about Michael Kenna's work in a Montessori School (I think in San Francisco.) That would be the look that I would go for . . .

I have made two attempts at this, the first being basically the whole frame but in warm monochrome.

And another using just the fireplace and the poker.

The more I mess with it the more I feel I need to re-shoot it. Thanks for all your input.

I think that the walls should be more pure B&W while the left and right areas should be warm/sepia.

I like the second one best of the two, but I agree that a re-shoot with a UWA lens might give you a lot more to work with. It remains a wonderful subject with a lot of potential. Keep working it.