WOOD!

Seriously, the whole darn thing in covered in wood boards (like paneling but I've been instructed that it's a number of steps up from regular paneling though I don't fully understand how) that makes our house very warm looking but also kind of dark at times. Par example:

This is the living room

This is the master bedroom

Now I don't inherently hate the outdated thing we've got going on in here, the wood is of good quality and I will admit to liking the cabin feel. I must confess that I didn't realize until after moving in that on top of having zero design sense I have no clue how to design around/with all that wood! What would (tehe wood) you do?