Don't replace anything unless you can afford to get the chandelier you want to live in for decades to come. What you have is not unsightly, and you say you have a budget. Change will not be an improvement of quality.

Agree with Anglophilia. As a quick fix I would remove one light fixture and patch over the hole. The second I would move to center over my table. Had similar problem in our recently purchased house. Hubby used a hook and longer chain to move light over our table. It will stay like that until I am ready to replace fixture with one I love.

I'm not really looking for a quick fix. I'll live with these as they are til I decide what the ideal setup would be and find something I love to replace these.

My question is, would replacing these with two flush mounts still look wonky, and what would look best with a table that fills the whole room?

Personally, I prefer chandeliers in dining rooms. There is something cozy, intimate, and well, pretty about them, that I think would be harder to achieve with flushmounts. Flushmounts, even some of the nicer ones, look more utilitarian and are better for bedrooms, laundries, and places where you need light but don't want to bonk your head.

Have you considered leaving the table longer all the time to make good use of two fixtures? New tables are relatively easy to come by on Craigslist. Just tossing it out as another option. What you have is very nice.

Thanks laughable! Looks like you're solving lighting issues too:)

I agree I like chandeliers, and a single one would look great with our round table. But I just wonder how we could supplement the lighting when we have dinner guests. I'm starting to think about a few recessed lights, but that makes me cringe a little..:/

This table was made custom for us; its 54" round. I wanted it big enough in diameter that we could fit around it as a family without pulling it out. So I'm not too sure about leaving it pulled out for everyday. Only four of us, and 6 can fit comfortably.

We did can lights in addition to the chandelier in our 15 x 17 dining room, on dimmers. We use them when we want a lot of light, or when we're feeling miserly, since they're led's. I find them a bit too cool with our wall color to really enjoy them dimmed, though. We also have table lamps on some of the flat surfaces, which we do like to use when we eat by candlelight. Would you like a lamp or two on your sideboard that's in front of the window?

Start with one center chandelier because two chandeliers is just overkill for your "everyday" table. Choose a fixture that provides good illumination, and put it on a dimmer so you can tweak the light as needed. I would not use a flush mount fixture.

I agree with laughable -- you could add some recessed lighting, or try a lamp or two on the sideboard. But I suggest you start with one good fixture and see if that's enough.

You might also consider downlights instead of uplights if you're worried about not having enough illumination. If you're just having dinner, you probably don't need as much lighting as you might think. Think about how dark some restaurants are. Sometimes I feel like I should bring a flashlight to read menus!

I guess that I have never seen a normal size dining room with two light fixtures like this. Our dining room is a larger than yours and we still need only one fixture. It has five lights. I do have a lamp on the sideboard, but rarely use it. I think Sueb has it right.

Thanks for the input, it's so helpful!

Laughable, I'm glad to hear you have recessed lights in your dining room and it works okay. I just don't like the way they can make a room feel like a cave, but with a central chandelier providing ambient lighting too, it would probably be fine. I like the idea of lamps on the buffet; but since it's in front of the window I might try sconces flanking the window instead. Thanks for the inspiration!

Sue, it seems to be the consensus to go for chandelier rather than flushmount. I guess that was just a stab at keeping it simple as far as ceiling work, but I don't think it would still look right. The only reason I'm worried about having enough light is for when we stretch out the table to seat more people, I don't want anyone on the end to feel "in the dark"! I think my new idea of sconces on the buffet wall would help that, and we could always add some cans later if it proved too dim at times.

powermuffin, that's the main problem. Those two chandeliers just look too out of scale, like they fill up the room and make it feel cramped. The POs must have had a larger rectangular table.

Most dining rooms have one central light fixture - chandelier- and no other lights in the ceiling, but the rooms usually are arranged so the table is extended equally (or nearly equally) on each side of the light fixture so there is no "dark end". I would move your everyday table under the fixture closest to the camera and replace that with your dream fixture and remove the one closest to your sideboard and repair the hole. If you do that, it looks like the extended table could be placed with the ends pretty equally spaced from the central fixture.

If the sideboard placement still makes it too off center from the fixture when extended, then maybe move the sideboard during your large dinners if you can, or think about a floor lamp (maybe a torchiere) in one of the corners inside the opening closest to the camera. That would provide some uplighting in that end of the room. Or consider putting some wall sconces in the places you need more light.