Interior Lighting - Beginning Phase

This would be my first time properly lighting a scene with Global Illumination with the proper theory of mental ray understood.

I added in curtains and windows and a flower vase with a few tulips on the on coffee table. I made a texture in Photoshop for the vase. Once I was happy with the modeling, I decided to get into lighting. Well, as expected, nothing went right the first time. Maya crashed on me, the lights did not give me any shadows, no GI seen even though everything was activated. Well, after fixing the normals of a few pieces of geometry, things started to work. So here's the first and very very extremely rough render:

There's only one light source - an area light behind the windows, which is giving direct and well as indirect illumination to the scene. However, some of the photons are screwing up as you can see between the two windows. I have no idea why this is happening. I was trying to get rid of it but failed to do so - so much so that I got a headache and decided to quit Maya and write this post of progress. Tomorow, I'll try fixing this issue as well do the following:

- add a glass material to the coffee table top
- add a chrome material to the table legs and the lamp body
- add wood texture to the painting frame
- make curtains translucent
- add texture to the sofa sets and the flower pot

As for now, I'll go to sleep. Been working for approximately 4 hours straight on this scene. More later.