Until he got to the glass furniture part, I thought Charles was writing about my room! Mine is as well set up as can be while still taking aesthetics into account. I am the neatnik in the house, and as much as I know/believe that 23 foot speaker wire is compromising the sound, so be it.
Having said that, I have spent many years and dollars fighting a very unbalanced room. Small speakers were no match for bass leakage into other rooms, and large speakers overloaded the closed corner side of the room. Using open baffle speakers and a sealed sub has been a good compromise.
A dedicated room is of course ideal, but I do thoroughly enjoy being able to cook, putter around the house, and read the paper while cranking the stereo out from the living room.