Sit down dinners for eight? Well, you will certainly be hanging your capacious cookware from that potrack! The dimensions of the room don't allow for a dining table the size needed for eight people to be up all the time, but there are a few ways around that. One is a console table that when folded has a small silhouette and functions as a sofa table that you put behind the sofa table to hold a lamp, your remotes, a drink, etc. When you need it, it expands, and expands, and expands! With that you can use collapsible folding chairs and there are some very nice ones, including wood ones that you can store under your bed, along with the very long tablecloths. In fact, there is an article about just that sort of table on Houzz. Then you may or may decide to not get a small table for two or as you initially thought, just get two bar stools. [https://www.houzz.com/magazine/5-instant-dining-tables-stsetivw-vs~928815[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/5-instant-dining-tables-stsetivw-vs~928815) Another option is to get a small table that you leave in your room and then a much larger piece of wood or plywood to put on top for parties, (with maybe saw horsesif the table topper is much larger) padding the table and the wood and using a tablecloth, and storing the piece of plywood and saw horses under your bed or in a storage unit in your building. To seat 8 people, tables of these configurations should be of these dimensions: Round: 60 - 66 " diameter Rectangle: 8 feet long

Maybe a chair in a fun color would make it seem more than simply functional. For example, we have this chair off to the side in our living room. I'm not saying this is your style but more that it doesn't scream dining chair b/c of the color. You may find a style you like in a surprising color to make it work in your room. https://www.target.com/p/mid-century-modern-molded-arm-chair-with-wood-leg-light-blue-dorel-home-products/-/A-52273945?ref=tgt_adv_XS000000&AFID=google_pla_df&fndsrc=tgtao&CPNG=PLA_Furniture%2BShopping&adgroup=SC_Furniture&LID=700000001170770pgs&network=g&device=c&location=9009654&ds_rl=1246978&ds_rl=1247068&ds_rl=1246978&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlpH_4OSo4gIV1YWzCh2-qwXeEAQYAyABEgL9aPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Most people are well aware of the fact that a pedestrian has the right of way, but if parking lots were reconfigured to more effectively separate them, it would be less of an issue. You have to remember, also, that many drivers are looking at that traffic and pedestrians can get overlooked. It is also true that pedestrians have a responsibility to watch and acknowledge that the driver of the car knows that they are there. In a busy parking lot like the one at my local Costco it is like a game of chance for both pedestrian and driver to dodge one another, like some sort of perverse video game. I just cannot, for the life of me, understand why this is not a very prominent and important public safety issue or that a company with the deep pockets of Costco would allow this liability. I never approach the store through one of those avenues. There are other ways into the parking lot at the back where there is not a concentrated number of people pushing small mountains of groceries. It happened to me just the other day that I was at a stop sign leaving a parking lot. I was at a four way stop and looking for my turn to pull away when my husband warned me to stop. There was a small man in a little low motor chair who was about to cross in front of my car. He was small, low profiled and dressed all in dark colors and I really just did not see him at all. He blended in to the rest of the landscape like a tree trunk amongst the rest of the leafless tree trunks. Shudder!!! People do pull around in a parking lot at unsafe speeds, often. I go very slowly in a parking lot and also when backing out. Even with a back up camera you never know when a small child might run across or someone is speeding around the corner. People will criticize for this and say that I drive like an old person. Maybe that is true because life has taught me a few lessons in hubris and caution. Accidents happen and sometimes they are simply the chaos of the universe at work. To the poster talking about people parking their shopping carts in the middle of the aisle. Once, again, I am without fault in this. Now, don't laugh. (Well, Ok, maybe laugh a little bit. ). Seriously, if you find others at fault for this, try not to commit the same error. I really do try to be considerate and NOT do this. Some people seem to not give any thought to it at all. Still, even though I am clearly a superior person who does not speed in parking lots or block the store aisle there are times when things happen, as I almost overlooked that small man in the motor chair. And, of course, I am NOT a superior person and not without fault. Just kidding.

Here is a followup to my original posting. Installation of the plank flooring is rather easy but preparing the subfloor is anything but! We are very happy with the final results but getting there wasn’t easy. Some of the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory, has been down for more than a year. None of it shows any signs of wear, even when inspected carefully. We vacuum all of the floors in the house every week using 2 inexpensive eufy robo vacs and mop once a month. The color does not show the dirt easily. If you walk on it when it is wet after mopping, it often shows footprints when dry, during certain times of the day when the natural light is just right. I expect the floor to be looking good long after I’m gone. I think the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory, is an excellent product. It is really tough. It locks together easily if you follow the directions. Delivery was only one week late; very good considering the supply chain issues at that time. The planks had 5 distinct patterns. I was expecting 6. Bear in mind that the characteristic feature of a pattern, such as a unique knot, can appear on the left side or the right side of a plank and might appear at any location along the length of the plank. So there is a lot of variation among the planks. Before putting them down, I separated a few boxes into 5 different piles of planks, based on the pattern. I installed the flooring in our smallest bedroom first, by myself in November 2021. Waited for spring to resume work. I hired a helper in May 2022 for the remainder after a knee became very painful. My helper connected the planks together and marked the pieces to be cut. I selected the planks from the piles for him to put down and and made the cuts, so I could remain on my feet. I used an electrically powered table saw, jigsaw and a mitre saw to make the cuts. Discovered weeks later that I tore the lateral meniscus in my right knee, probably from getting up and down from the floor so much. Had surgery on the knee in November 2022. Not sure when I’ll start the last small bedroom. All rigid core plank flooring that locks together and floats on top of the sub floor requires a subfloor that is unusually flat. The floor does not have to be level. It does have to be flat. If the subfloor has significant peaks and valleys, (high spots and low spots) the relatively rigid planks will bridge over the low spots, leaving an air space between the top of the subfloor and the bottom of the plank. Stepping on a plank that is bridging over a low spot will cause a popping or snapping sound. You may find the popping and snapping sounds to be annoying. I have learned that most of these noises subside, almost completely, after several months. If the valley is too deep, your weight will stress the tongue and groove locking mechanism too much. Repeated stepping on such a spot will likely cause it to fail. Then the planks may move independently of one another and come apart. That would be a serious problem. Our one story home was built in 2000. It has a concrete subfloor. I have installed the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory in one small bedroom, a large bedroom/sitting room and a laundry room. In every room I had to flatten the subfloor before installing the plank flooring. I did the small bedroom first. After watching several Youtube videos, I decided to grind down the high spots instead of filling in the low spots. I bought all new gear to do the job, since I had 950 sq ft of flooring to install. That was a big mistake. Grinding down a concrete floor is an extremely slow, noisy, dirty, dusty, hazardous, and physically demanding job. Here is a photo of the floor in the small bedroom. In subsequent rooms I filled in the low spots with LevelQuik RS Self-Leveling Underlayment, made by Custom Building Products. Mixing and applying this product requires at least 2 people. It’s sold by The Home Depot and others. I did not cover the entire floor with the leveling compound. That would have required about 3 times as much leveling compound and would have raised those floors about ⅛ “ which I didn’t want to do. (Self-Leveling is a misnomer. The stuff is the consistency of thin pancake batter and requires some assistance and tooling to make a smooth flat surface. For the purpose of creating a flat subfloor for plank flooring in a home, I suggest that you add about 10% more water than the directions indicate. Doing so will make it flow better without adversely affecting its performance when cured.) Prior to applying the leveling compound, I applied Multi-Surface Bonding Primer (MBP) to the concrete floor to ensure a tight bond between the original concrete and the leveling compound. (MBP is also made by Custom Building Products.) If you use the MBP you can feather the leveling compound to zero, and don’t have to maintain a minimum thickness of ⅛” over the entire floor. Here are some photos of the floor in the large bedroom completed in June 2022. Finding the borders of the high and low spots is tedious. Next time I will probably pour water in the previously identified low spots of the floor. Then I’ll mark the boundaries of the “puddles” with a large permanent black felt tip maker. Then vac up the water, let dry, apply MBP, and finally the leveling compound. The floor in the laundry room between the garage and the kitchen gets a lot of abuse. It was installed in September 2022. As you can see, the color of the flooring is highly dependent upon the light. That's why it's important to look at samples in your home. Paige; The Flooret Modin Base Soho sample that I tested was more abrasive compared to the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory sample. I hope this update is useful for some of you who are considering rigid core vinyl plank flooring.