I have never had a problem with the rubber waffle type pads ruining my wood floors. Rubber on vinyl will discolor the flooring. You can buy fabric backed rugs and since it will not be in a traffic area you won't need to worry about it slipping but it will not scratch the floor. If you get one with a rough back I would still use something under it because it will slide when you move the table for your laptop use and then you will end up with scratching the floor eventually.

We have the same problem in our dining room. And the real 'ACK' part is that we gutted our whole kitchen/dining area and removed the old ceiling, so we could have addressed it properly the first time. Once the new dining room table was in, it was obvious we would be moving it off centre (pathway to deck is behind table), and we're kicking ourselves. DH is planning to buy a plaster medallion to put up on the ceiling, so that the edge of it will cover the old hole. Luckily, he is an electrical engineer, so he can do the rewiring. I COULD patch the hole, but what a LITERAL pain in the neck. So not only will the fixture be off-centre, but medallion will be too. I am pretty sure it will cost you more than $35 extra on top of the first $35 to rewire in a new location- assuming there is enough wire up there to allow the move. Ours is accessible from the attic.

For a lot of years I had rugs over carpet....the amount of crawl depends on a lot. One the direction the nap on the carpet lays, the direction of travel through the room and the lay of the rug and how you vacuum. Eventually, I bit the bullet, tore up the carpet and refinished and repaired the floors....and still the rugs creep. The one in the dining room always goes one way....leading me to believe people walk faster from the dining room to the living room than to the kitchen. the living room rug never moves....but the one in the family room always moves east.... Well....after all it IS an Oriental!

If any of you experts are still reading this- I just spoke with the contractor and he can knock down the foundation wall that returns at a perpendicular angle to the house. The garage and studio would then be a rectangle that bisects the breezeway cleanly at an angle. We could remove the roof return to the breezeway so it would be more like PPFs sketch without the green piece of wall. A bit of work but seems to solve many issues including a crammed exterior door in that location. The angular exterior space outside would return- but that seems less offensive then an asymmetrical garage. I lose some closet space on both floors but nothing major. Any thoughts on this?