I have a rug under my DR table. It's a nice wool rug I found on sale at a reasonable price. As others have noted, I made sure the dimensions allowed for all chairs to be pushed back without falling off the rug. (BTW, in the photo above with the zebra rug, I don't know how one would use the chairs at that table without catching the edges of the rug... that's the most impractical set-up I've ever seen, but, yes, I do like the rest of her blog. ;-) There are a number of economical sources for large area rugs--you don't have to spend thousands. My DR rug is no more difficult to keep clean than any other area of my home.

You haven't accounted for the chairs while under the table and you have to add space to pull them out and when seated. Pull all your chairs out as far as you would need to in order to sit down and not catch the chair legs on edge of the rug. That is comfortably about 2' per chair (or an extra 4' of length and width). So you need about 7'6" x 9' minimum for table and chairs. Get the 8x10, IMO.

Here is one rug I found online that could be a contender, except it doesnt have a 8x10 size. One more picture so you can see another view of the kitchen. This post was edited by khallock on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 10:41

linelle, thank you. Mom and Dad bought that for me when I set up my first house after grad school. aklvdb, I tried to talk DD into buying Tolix chairs to go with her breakfast table. She balked. One day we were at J. Crew and they had Tolix chairs setting around the store. I tried one out. I hate to tell you, your DH is right. They aren't comfortable. I felt like I was slipping out of the chair the whole time I was sitting in it. Broke my heart because I really like them. re: DH. We have one GW member who refers to her DH as HG - Honored Guest or House Guest. I can't remember, but I can identify!