My husband and I just closed on our first house. We lived in apartments before now, so except for beds and a couch, we are pretty much starting from scratch decorating our space.

One exciting room for us is our new (smalllll) dining room. It is only 10x11 with a 9 foot ceiling. Our children are 1 and 3 so we were starting to really feel the lack of a place to have family dinners. I would LOVE and appreciate ideas/ advice and inspiration for decorating this space appropriate to its small size and scale.

Some things:

1. The house is a small(1900 sq. ft) colonial style starter home. It has traditional finishes like a little crown molding and chair rails. We generally warm to contemporary and art deco designs over traditional though. Would transitional be a good design direction then?

2. All our friends have a couple of young children like ourselves and ideally we would like to have some over for dinner. As such, the more seating we can get without it feeling crowded, the better. Definitely more seating>side boards or cocktail trays.

3. There are glass paneled french doors leading to the little dining room that open outwards into the adjoining living room.

4. I was considering having a settee with a low back provide the seating on one side of the table...bad idea or good?

5. The flooring is walnut hardwood. What size area rug would you suggest?

It is such a small room, but we are really lost with stuff like, round table, square table or oval? What size? How low should we hang the chandelier- what kind of chandelier?!?