One more thought on the dining room. Maybe I should relocate the dining room chandelier to my daughter's room and put one that gives more light in the dining room? I would prefer to keep the existing one in the house somewhere since it is original (as best I can tell).

Thanks!

I strongly dislike overhead lighting.

My short-term DR solutions are:
1. Antique torchiere/funeral lamp with mogul 3-way bulb that throws out a lot of light and has an attractive glass.

2. spot light on the floor shining upward toward the wall.

No cans. Get a larger chandelier and pace it on a dimmer switch. Add buffet lamps, some corner placed upward pointing spot lights maybe behind large plants. Also most likely you have a real plaster ceiling and real plaster walls. You might have to replace the entire ceiling once you start opening that up to put in a few cans. Make sure your larger chandelier has adequate support from the ceiling. Then use a large ceiling medallion to cover any ceiling damage and enhance your new chandelier. My house in Wisconsin was also built in 1926. I put in a new chandelier also.

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...??)

Gosh!

I was typing and pasting as EG3d was posting, and our light fixtures are strikingly similar.

Great minds....

Thank you for the feedback! I wish I was together enough to post photos but I haven't figured that out yet, and since I am still unpacking boxes (and looking for preschools, and. . . .) from our move, I'm just not going to get around to that for awhile honestly.

Replacing the existing chandelier would be more finacially feasible than can or adding sconces, so I think I will focus on that as a medium term solution.

I think I will try lamps in the living room first and see how that plays out. We would need the lamps regardless so that seems like a reasonable first step and I can contemplate a ceiling fixture down the road if it seems like we still need more light.

Thank so much.

The wall sconces could be plugin w/line-cord switch--which I use in my DR, or you can have a hard-wired style adapted to plugin in a lamp shop or by and electrician.

You can always just use real candle sconces in your dining room.
I love the feeling of candlelight around the room for a dinner party.

They can be something as simple as corbels with fat candles inside simple glass cylinders. There are also inexpensive ones at import stores as well.

I have a set of four of these - they were in my previous dining room, and now live in a long hallway. I think they came from the late lamented Bombay Company. In any case, they are an inexpensive copy of something much better. The mirror gives the candlelight some depth and sparkle, and protects the wall. They were (and are) over pieces of furniture, so we never set anybody's hair on fire...

Thank you!

chijim...if you come back to this thread, do you have any photos of your sconces? I'd love to put sconces in our dining room, but am worried about messing up the plaster walls with hardwiring, so I'm toying with plug-ins.

Oh, and sorry to hijack, crl! I, too, have a house with lack of ceiling lights and am trying to look for lamps for my living room and more lighting for our small, but too dimly lit for my tastes, dining room.

If you have a sideboard or chest in your dining room, you can also do a pair of buffet lamps to add another layer of light. I agree, no cans in the dining room.