Visualisation Practice - Daylight system v. Standard Volume Lights

Basically, because I rather like doing visualisation work, I have decided to keep practicing it, seeing as it's nearly the end of the year and only have one project left to do (well.. two mini ones I think). First of all, I just made a simple room with 2 windows in 1 wall and a camera facing this wall. I then added a few objects, before trying to add light and shadows from the windows.

Firstly, I tried using standard lights with the volume light effect coming from outside the windows. I also used a couple of standard omni lights of a similar colour to the wooden floor to light the scene generally.

Secondly, I tried using a daylight system to add lights from outside the windows. With this, I then experimented with the mr (mental ray) sky and daylight settings, so I could have the illusion of a ground plane outside. I also used some photometric omni lights for the same effect as the previous example. However, for these lights, I had to combine their "kelvin" levels and the photometric exposure settings to get my desired colour and brightness.

I think if I used these techniques combined (i.e. use a daylight system and photometric lights, but also adda couple of volume light effects onto photometric spotlights from the windows?) then I could achieve a better effect overall.
 

This is only very simple lighting in terms of visualisation, and I will be learning and trying muuuuch more over the summer, as lighting and cinematrography are the main parts of my research question. :)