My vote is for the entryway. While symmetry is often most pleasing on the eye, it is not always possible (and if overdone can be downright boring). You can make up for a lack of symmetry with a sense of balance. The most important thing is that it flow in the room and is anchored by other elements in the room. Perhaps you can center it relative to the wall closet opposite? Which gives it is sense of purpose so that these two areas become your organization/storage for indoor/outdoor items, mail, etc. One of the side shelves could even be a purse/briefcase (or later diaperbag) repository. I recommend the mirror and lamps similar to mine. The mirror serves not only as decor, but function so you can make a last minute check on appearance before heading out the door. Didn't you have a mantle clock? If so, that'd work well in the center, probably better than my pitcher given the proposed location. If you put decor on the top you will be less inclined to clutter it up--esp. if you designate one of the drawers for "clutter". It works with the spindle table in the room, but in this case I would not put a mirror above the spindle table, instead some artwork would look nice there, or perhaps a chair where someone could sit and put on their shoes. Perhaps even revist the idea of angling the spindle table so that everything is not linear. My take is a bit different than teacats in that I prefer not only woods to match or be very similar within a room, but the style as well. Your style seems similar to mine in that you have a mix of transitional and antique going on. Do you have a family room also? If not, then it would be a good thing to have a few bare spots in the LR to keep the future baby's playthings. I can see it working well as a salon piece also, but would be concerned the finish would get damaged by all the hair care products, scissors, etc. unless you were to get a glass top made for it.

Computer area is not just about the computer. You need a printer, storage for printer paper, fax/scanner and other stuff that goes with the printer. Most people need these things unless you have an office near where the family spends most of the time. We actually have 2 printers in the house, 1 in the baseement office which is printer/scanner/fax, then another one under the kitchen desk. These get used all the time. We have a nice color laser printer, and when the kids have projects for the school, this is an essential part of the 'stuff' that we need to have in the house. I can't imagine going to Kinkos to print because our printer is not good enough to print out a school paper... (been there and done that!) Another thing that you need is a place to store kids junk: pens, markers, crayons, colored paper, scizzors, glue, glitter glue, etc etc. Where will that go? What about a place to charge stuff? we have 4 cell phones, ipad, 2 laptops, 3 ipods that get charged nearly every night. So far, these get charged in respective bedrooms. It would have been nice to charge these at a central station. I don't. I sure wish I had designed them into the house. I also like having a desktop in addition to my laptop. I like the large monitors to do some stuff easier. If you are working from home, this is more of an issue. I am not ready to trade my laptop completely for my high res 24 inch flat panel screen that I use with my desktop. I also like working with my feet on the ground which means 'desk height' not countertop height. Most people still need a phone station with a personal phone book, pens, paper, calendar, message board, grocery list, mail sorting etc. I have met very few people that have completely transitioned to a no-paper household. What about the storage for your stereo system? No one has the stereo amp out in the open these days. They are hidden behind a door/elsewhere and the controlled from the laptop/iphone. LOW: if they are ripping out their desks, it tells me that they are older folks that have already raised their kids. I can't imagine running a household without a central work area. However, the kitchen desks do not work when they are smack in the middle of the kitchen because having it in a bad place obstructs the work flow both in the kitchen and the desk. I often see desks that are too close to the work area of the kitchen and WAY too small to be useful. So what the family ends up doing is to use the dining room as the de-facto work table and it gets covered with projects and paper. The family never eats in the DR and use the kitchen table to eat. In many of these homes that I have seen, the DR is a poorly designed office (since it is subpar as an office) and the kitchen desk is the drop-zone. This is the reflection of poor design rather than the idea that the kitchen desk is not useful. Each space that you design has to be done well enough to be useful. IMHO, the kitchen desk has to be big enough to work as a small office. You need to be able to store just about all you need in that little space. Then it has to be out of the way of the workflow in the kitchen. You current location is a great location for the small desk because it is NOT in the kitchen proper. If you had put it next to your current refrigerator (which often were in the 80s and the 90s), it would have been useless...

I did a built in 8 ft buffet in our dining room that I love. It has 27" drawers on each end flanking a very wide (44") door-cabinet. Behind the cabinet doors, I have two deep ROTS (with heavy duty glides), I think it balances things nicely. There are "furniture feet" on either end, too, to pull things together. The drawers on each end hold linens, and the ROTS in the center hold TONS of serving pieces. (Are you doing anything up top? I did, and I like what I did . . . see images for details.) FWIW, I went with standard 24" depth and it allows for lots of storage space. I think 18" depth would be somewhat limiting, so I'd suggest going with 24" depth if you have space. The buffet is the part on the right of this image.

Hi Annette- Re the broken decanter, ( my cat broke an irreplaceable family item and I know how the loss feels) ) - but for not one of a kind items, I have had good luck with eBay searches which send emails to you of pictures and descriptions from their listings.-follow a search such as "vintage frosted glass decanters." and who knows what might eventually show up. Best of luck with your new home!