Our dining room has similar dimensions to yours, also with a 9' ceiling. Our chair rail is about 3 1/2" but it sits on a 6" backer board. I definitely do not think that 3 1/2" is a big profile, but then I'm from the bigger-is-better school of thought when it comes to mouldings and trim.

What are the dimensions of your table as you normally have it set up? You don't want the length of the fixture to be fine with 2 or 3 leaves if you only use those once or twice a year. I'm looking at rectangular also in the new home we are building with a very open floor plan. But since we wouldn't have leaves in it on an everyday basis I'm thinking of the length of the rectangular chandy being maybe 3/4 of the length of table with no leaves. Does this sound reasonable?

'm doing something similar to my 1920s house. Right now the kitchen is way too small and by opening up to the dining room we can add an island and entertain like we want to, plus I'm planning to keep the period details in tact like our stained glass window, part of the chair rail, our beautiful crown molding etc. I like the idea proposed of basically having a beam in between so that you can keep some of the detail but not having the 2 openings which I feel like would seem a bit strange. I'm planning to do something similar. Dont listen to everyone who says you own the wrong home, its going to be lovely and will function in a better way for your family. I looked for over 2 years for a 1920's house in my area of FL. Every single home had been remuddled by people like yourself who thought they were making it better. Except what happens is those houses remuddled in the 1970's look like they were remuddled in the 70's and look nothing like the charming houses of the 1920's. Those remuddled in the 80's look like the 80's, those in the 90's look like the 90's...You get the picture. Those of us who love old houses do not want a remuddled house. We want something where ALL the original character of the main rooms (excluding kitchens of course) are intact and rooms haven't been added onto or opened up in such a way that they change the character of the house. It ranks up there with painting beautiful old fir, mahogany, oak woodwork to make it more updated and brighter and it devalues the house because the house no longer fits with what it is. The problem is everyone now wants HGTV but the problem is HGTV is selling product and once the next product is hot, then today's product will look like yesterday's has been.

Thanks for all the advice! I think I am on the side of getting a rug. The more time I have spent looking at the room today has made it more obvious. Thanks for the pictures Beth, super helpful! I am an extremely particular person, especially when it come to rugs haha (I spent 3 or 4 weeks constantly/obsessively searching for the one in our living room). It is nice to have a jumping off point. Let the search begin... I have a black rectangular planter coming that I was planning on placing on the table and planting some low succulents in (picture). I thought that the table needed something black on it to pull in the light fixture more effectively. I was also planning on putting large plant in the corner. I'm not sure what type of art to put on the wall under the window. The window placement is...awkward. I wonder if a live/moss planting would work? There will be more mini projects and questions that come up for this main area as we move through it. We have most of the major pieces but are missing a lot of the smaller elements to tie it all together.