Could we see photos of the rooms? I like your idea of a different chandelier that lights the table in all the various ways you want. I also like sconces in a dining room to put warm pools of light on the walls, but they aren't very good for task lighting. At the table, whatever you're doing is likely to be in your own shadow. It's my view that you need two pairs of sconces in any dining room scheme - so that there is a pair on both of two opposing walls - to balance the light. And I'm also a fan of lots of lamps in a living room, but with a very high ceiling, sometimes a dimmable fixture in the center is great to warm and light the whole room. Here's what we have in our 11' tall living room. In the first photo, you're seeing its reflection - the second one shows you the thing itself. The dining room also has one like this, hung lower to accommodate the table. It's dimmable, and provides plenty of light for puzzles and games when it's cranked all the way up. And there are dimmable lamps in all four corners of the dining room, which we use in conjunction with the drop pendant, dimmed down, for dinners. In that scheme, it can give just enough light to keep faces and food from being in the shadows, but it's still gentle and warm. (I don't know why there's a shadow around it in the photo...??)

I just got home from being out of town and I've been itching to plug your space in to the Ikea planner. I hope you don't mind me posting this even though it sounds like you've made a decision. I do think a better use of your space is to get the fridge out of the primary work area; you'll gain 30ish inches of valuable counter space in there. If you can change the opening from the living room, I think it'll work. This drawing shows a four foot opening starting five feet from the dining area window wall. I also put a pantry next to the fridge to spare counter space. I had to guess on some dimensions. If you're considering Ikea, this layout with the off-white shaker style Ikea fronts (Grimslov), all drawer base cabinets, 40 inch tall uppers and a 18 inch wide pantry shelf is around $3700.

I measured roughly using the 20"20 porcelain tiles as my tool and here is what I got. The living room is 13 1/3 ft deep x 18 1/3 ft wide. The window is app. 10ft wide. We are replacing the window with one that will have a larger center picture window and a smaller sliding window on each side. The normal arrangement for furniture is the back of the sofa to the window, centered. Two chairs angled on the wall where sofa is now in the pictures. An old recliner is in the area to the left of window as you enter the room. There is one bookcase that I now have on the wall that you face as you enter the room from the foyer. It's in the left corner with a small round table on the other side. Coffee and end tables too. We used to have an upright piano that took up alot of space but that is now at my son's house since he is the one who plays. Interests, hmmm... I am into genealogy and the bookcase holds pictures of ancestors. We also have two portraits of ancestors on the formal dining room wall, same wall as bookcase and its also the wall with the buffet on it. In the formal dining room, I also have two shadow boxes with engraved antique silverware from my husband's family, plus some other family treasures. We live in Florida. Most houses the age of ours are similiar. Our house is one of the larger homes, although not as large as many of the northern peoples' homes here on Houzz forums, or as fancy. I just want something that fits with the porcelain tile that we chose ( we have two dogs that love to run and play). I had wall to wall and just got sick of it. I love my area rugs, I know, not an in color that is "in" now but it will stay. Window treatments will change once we decide what to do with the furniture and new windows are installed. The walls are Pewter Vase - I thought it was a Sherwin Williams color but my paint strip doesn't say that. Its a nice netural gray, doesn't read purple in the room. At one time, I had thought about putting causal furniture in the room, without any area rugs. That was when my first grandson was a toddler and we used the area for floor puzzles and playing. However, the tile was too hard to sit on and we had an echo. I have another toddler grandson now and we have enough space for him to push his toys in a path around the foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen and into the family room. I don't forsee it being a problem to get new furniture but its another reason to consider price and style. Thanks for the comments so far. I appreciate your help.

dragonfly wings, the picture is my BREAKFAST room, not my DR! People confuse them all the time. It is much smaller than my small DR. When we bought this house over 34 years ago, the room we now call the Breakfast room, was a very small bedroom. The door opening was closer to the door into the kitchen in the back hall. We moved the door over, turned it into a larger opening, and installed pocket doors. We then had bookcases built and used it as a small TV room. The corner cabinet I now use to store my many dishes, was built for the 1985 huge, deep TV and all the other stuff - stereo, tape deck etc. We had a small loveseat on one wall, and a nice leather club chair on another. There was also an antique corner chair in there. With just my husband and young teen daughter living there full time, it was fine; when very large DS was home from boarding school, it was very cramped. Then in 1993, my mother died. I inherited all her furniture (only child), and it included a small Duncan Phyfe table and chairs, and a small china cabinet. By then, DS had graduated from college and was working/living in Washington DC, so he did not need his old BR. The guest room, used by my mother when she came for holidays, now no longer was used. So we took over DS's bedroom, which had been designed as a 1st flr MBR with ensuite bath. We had some ready-made bookcases in it, moved in the furniture and a 2nd leather club chair and a couple of ottomans. It was now our TV room, the the small room became the breakfast room, using Mother's furniture. Over the years, the TV room/library, evolved as we could afford to make changes. The final change was to remove the two closets (made the room longer by 2 ft), and to change the opening of the ensuite bath to a hall between this room and the entrance hall, by removing the bath tub. We had another full bath on this floor with a tub/shower. So, the ensuite became a powder room, and there was now a hall between the library and the entrance hall. We also had bookcases custom built for the room (we've spent a fortune building bookcases in this house and we still don't have enough!). Now the room no longer looked like a BR pretending it was a library. Nearly 3 years ago, I was browsing in a small local antique shop and saw the round table pictures in my breakfast room. I had been looking for a new table as the Duncan Phyfe one from my mother was tippy if one leaned on an end, even just slightly. It was also a bit too long for this small room. And what should catch my eye, but this round table! I immediately measured it, put it on hold, and came home and measured and figured out it was perfect for this room. I had already changed out the chairs - my mother had 2 of those old carved rose on the back chairs, with the seats done in one of those needlepoints one could buy in dept stores - the flower already being done and only requiring the background to be done. They were pretty but a bit too "quaint" for my house. When DH's mother died, he rescued the chairs I have from the attic. They were in terrible condition but clearly were lovely, heavy chairs. So, off they went to be repaired and refinished (they were that bad), and I found some wool mohair fabric at a discount place for $15 a yd! A steal as mohair starts at $100 a yr, wholesale! I had railheads added. LOVE these chairs! One never noticed the chairs with the old table, but once the round table came in, people immediately commented on the chairs, too. The antique shop said they believed the table was an Irish piece as the Queen Anne legs had carving on the tops. He said the English never did this, only the Irish. Whatever the country of origin, I adore this table, It's very versatile as the legs swing in and it can be used with both leaves dropped, as a console or hall table, or one leg can be up. I love the rug in this room. When my uncle was a young Cavalry officer, he was stationed in the Canal Zone (probably in the early teens of the 20th century). He bought this rug and two matching throw rugs (which are in the hall outside this room). They are Chinese, handmade wood rugs, but they were made specifically for sale in the Canal Zone. When we inherited them when he died, I called oriental rug dealers in St Louis - no one had ever seen any like these. The colors were traditional, but not the design. Then I remarried and my husband's parent came to St Louis for the wedding, bringing their live-in cook/housekeeper with them. Ruth was to babysit for my children during the Rehearsal Dinner, but attend the wedding the next day. Ruth was a black woman who had grown up in the Canal Zone. She walked into my living room and gasped, saying she had not seen rugs like this since she was a little girl in the Canal Zone - they were only in the "finest" homes there. So, now we knew a bit more. A dealer in LA added the final piece of the puzzle when he said they were made in China just for sale there, to appeal to the taste of US Army Officer's wives, who would buy them and take them back to the US. Well, my uncle was a bachelor so they appealed to him, too! It's one of my favorite rooms in my house. It's only a few feet from the kitchen, so eating in there is very convenient and easy. If my DH were still with me, we'd eat there every night. Eating there by myself, just makes me too lonely for him, so I rarely do. Sometimes on a weekend, I'll have breakfast in there - pancakes/french toast/waffles - you know, not a regular weekday breakfast.