Your table sounds fabulous! That's a tough decision. How wide are the leaves? Will there really be seating for an extra person in each corner? If the leaves can provide around 15 inches of knee room, I would seat the smaller family members on the corners and go for it with the end leaves. After all, the beauty and function of the table for every day use should probably take precedent over occassional larger gatherings. With a big group, people don't mind working around a table leg for just an hour or so. Enjoy your new table!

I love having a dedicated INformal dining room! Yes, it's 'The Dining Room,' but it's not formal. Long farm table, comfortable chairs, warm lighting, flooring and surfaces that won't get damaged by kids or spills. A really warm and welcoming place to eat meals as a family or with friends. The 'breakfast nook' has just never been my favorite. Even when the space is nice, the furniture is rarely of a caliber that brings joy to the users... I'd replace that with two comfortable wingback chairs and a tall side table -- the kind of place you could have a cup of coffee and read the paper, or sit with a glass of wine while your spouse makes dinner or cleans the kitchen. The other great use for a 'breakfast nook' IMO is as a kids' homework area or auxiliary baking table. Another great use for an unused dining room is (if you can close it off) as a TV room. Get the TV out of your family room and reclaim that space as a family gathering area without the constant racket of a TV.

Our previous home and our dining furniture were destroyed by a storm back in January so everything in the space will be new. I was going to wait until the house was nearer completion to decide exactly what furniture I will put in the space, beginning with the table and chairs and going from there. I’m not even sure if I want a hutch in the space or not as it will crowd the space and limit me in the future if I need to use table extensions for larger gatherings. Plus, there is a 30” wall between the kitchen and dining room (shaded in pink). Therefore, my gut says center between windows :) I just wanted to be sure before I had the electrician move it so I didn’t end up asking him to move it back later... :/

(not a pro) Is your dining table going to be centered in the room? If so, I'd want a chandelier centered in the room, over the table. (That's the orange circle below.) Then I think I'd want 4 can lights spaced evenly around the room (purple dots) but I'd ask here first too :) If your table will be offset within the room, I might still advocate for an electric box in the center of the room and swag a chandelier to a hook, in case you ever decide to move the table to the center. Can you get into the space for a bit to do the balloon trick? This is how I determined the height for a light that replaced the one you can see behind it. I moved the table under the balloons and we had a few dinners there, adjusting the strings until we got the heights that felt comfortable. (Kept it as reference for the electrician.) Did the same trick for placement of pendants over the island. You could move your balloon light (or however you do a mockup - maybe it's a box mimicking a rectangular light) around the space and view it in different positions and from different angles. This is so much easier than moving a real light after installation! (^^ that's the before. Below is the after. If it looks high, I had to accommodate people 6'6" and 6'7". But I felt more confident about placement because we sat under the balloon 'light' to try it out.)