Thanks for all the great responses! I appreciate you all taking the time to chime in. Oakleyok, the child's chair belonged to my DH's grandparents -the matching "adult chair" resides with his uncle -- no one sits on the little chair, but we like having it on display Rosie, I will work on a floor plan. I have been busy with other things but decided I need to do this so we are ready to entertain this fall. We rarely if ever actually use the fireplace (maybe 3 times in the 25 years we have lived here). You stated it beautifully "You need a room that invites people in and allows them to circulate freely and then find a seat that fits them and, in a few cases, that can be turned to join a conversation or face a speaker, like that nice scroll-arm chair. " My question is how to create a "room that invites people in". Ellendi, we do have a love seat and sofa now because that's what we had when we lived in New York -- 2 sofas sound appealing to me because we can always use more seating -- when you say to line up the sofas with the fireplace, I assume you mean perpendicular to the fireplace and not parallel -is that right? -the chairs are just near the round table because we brought the table from NYC and then my MIL gave us those chairs when she downsized -- we love the china cabinet -we bought it when we were first married and lived in London - it might fit in our dining room but unfortunately that it is the one room in the house that is small -we do sometimes bring in dining room chairs for our meetings and parties Teacats -thanks for the advice about how to use our existing furniture -our sofa is shot, so we will be replacing that and probably the love seat at the same time --it is an excellent point about covering up the air grate -i will have to find something that can be in front of it without blocking airflow -maybe a table with slim bench chairs underneath -and i like the idea of a tall mirror over the fireplace Camlan -i love your suggestion of moving our current furniture around to figure out what works for us -we do not use our dining room much as we have a breakfast room connected to the kitchen where we usually eat -we never go to the dining room from the entry way -and i don't think our friends do so often either One other point -- we are willing to consider a different rug - I like this rug a lot (it has some of Omar Khayyam's Rubiat on it) -but DH thinks we should get something more modern -and we could, of course, get a different size Thanks again!

I moved some things around and I think I like it better. I know the rug is too small and it shouldn't be "floating" but I don't want a new one until we get the other changes done. I moved the dresser into the dining room and hung (probably too high but couldn't convince 6'3" hubby to lower it and he had a point about being out of reach of the tornado. haha) the sign and pictures that had been on the mantle in the dining room. We also took off the ridiculous trim board they had up because we will be replacing the slider soon. So many things in this house like that silliness. I organized most of the books and moved the bookshelf. And grabbed a few canvases (I know they are small but can't remember where we left my big one) I did the flower, my dad painted the one on the right in Vietnam in '68. We need to fix the coffee table my dad built that's in the garage, I'll put it in front of the sofa, it's a little under 6'long, so it might be technically too big but, again, it's what I have. How'd I do?

In a space this large I would do 2 seting areas. But you need to provide a bit more info. Do you need a TV here ? how many seats on a regular basis are nessessary? My space in these pics is 15 x25 but as you see we have a huge FP but it might give you some idea of arranging furniture You could certainly use the wall where we have the FP for a TV, storage display idea.

Update on my living room: Thank you so much for the suggestions on the previous pictures. It helped me tremendously to get an idea of what I have done so far. I just received my sofa after 5 months of patiently waiting. This was the hardest part.  I'd really appreciate your ideas for this living room/ diningroom. We need to add accent chairs, coffee table, console table/a built-in shelf for the tv. I took everyone's advice here and our tv will go to the opposite wall from the sectional sofa. I'm struggling with the color scheme for the decor, accent chairs, accessories, side table, etc  for the coffee table I really liked to have a nesting round, but I'm not sure if it would be too big for the space we have. Since we have a live edge dining table, it's difficult for me how to choose other furniture pieces.  ps For the dining table I bought 4 chairs and was thinking I'll include two different color chairs. I had to return one char and keep three because two chairs were not fitting on both longer sides of the table. So, I decided to get a bench for the empty side instead. I hope my explanation is clear and not vague or confusing.  Thank you in advance.