Thank you all. We are thinking along the same lines. Mama Goose - what program do you use for the kitchen layout? I like how you set up pantry / mudroom. The current kitchen in 10"6" by 12' deep. The kitchen table is in a 7 foot wide space. A peninsula without seating divides the space, much of which is visible when you enter thru front door. I do not have all the room sizes. I assumed all rooms were 12x12 or larger. We would like to keep a formal dining room and a kitchen table. The family room was an extension, so the wall between LR@ and FR is load bearing. I assume the center wall between LR1 and Kitchen/ DR is also load bearing. Family congregates in LR2 and Family room which are now adjoined only by a sliding door. There is a step down from Foyer to hall / LR2 and you access LR2 from hallway adjacent to garage. Family likes the half wall between LR2 and kitchen, which gives a hint of open sightlines in an otherwise compartmentalized space. The door to the deck is used daily and the family finds the formal dining room and the kitchen eating area too small.

I like the last rug with the light field best, but I hope that you'll get it in a much larger size than your current rug since you say the floor will be wood. I personally would not make the dining room rug a solid color because I think that would break the continuity, but it doesn't necessarily have to be an Oriental rug as long as it has some commonality of color. This might be a little wild for most people, but in real life it looks better than in the picture because a photograph doesn't allow you to see all parts of the rooms. Nevertheless, it's just to show that you don't have to be overly concerned with continuity as long as there are some common colors in the rugs. Here is a rug with a blue background so you can see what that looks like in a room setting.

so this is the issue with the rug centered by the fireplace... there is a hallway right there that leads into the den... so it looked kinda weird if the rug was sticking out into the hallway from the den.... does that make sense? I actually had the rug further back under the sofa but the husband insisted on moving it closer to the hearth.. have to compromise here & there ya know... haha but yeah, I had it centered more on the fireplace, but like i said, the only issue was that then the rug was jutting into the hall... soooo... i lined it up with the edge of the half wall that the sofa is butted up against because that's where the hall starts... I'll share some more pictures later on this evening! was thinking of getting a different lamp as someone suggested, and maybe refinishing that table by the sofa in gray or white or something... thoughts?

Here is the relative size of your TV on that wall. I had to estimate the width of the door (and I suspect I may have made it narrower than it really is; you'll need to measure it open), but the TV is to scale as you can see by the yardsticks I taped up.