That would work for the living room. There is a lot of non-guest traffic into the TV room (to watch TV, eat lunch, dinner) -- the traffic pattern is between the chairs (on the wall) and the love seats. That looks like a half-moon console table in the front window - already have an oriental lamp for such. Both the round end table between the chairs and the long sofa table near the front window are mahogany, so I follow what you suggest about using the end table between the new chair placement, and moving the sofa table to the wall opposite the fireplace. There are also two brass hurricane lights on the sofa table, with black metal shades on them, so they would work on the wall. I can build the coffee table out of mahogany, using square-tapered legs like the one you showed, but would add some horizontal support boards near the bottom of the legs. There's also an antique armoir next to long wall to the right of the french doors. About your suggested chairs, aren't those narrow and difficult too find? I already have the exact same reading lamp pictured on the right of the white couch. It didn't take any guesswork to understand that the light behind the chair is standing. Can a tiffany lamp be used - or is it too gaudy?

Indeed, the 4x6 dining room table existed prior to living in this house. Going with a round table sounds like a good idea. The current 4x6 table is actually too large, since you have to essentially walk around it when traversing into the living room. At present, I am planning on placing a 36" mahogany console table like this:

on the wall to the right of the kitchen entrance from the dining room, beneath a colorful 36" gold-framed hand-painted impressionist replica I just commissioned. However, the chair molding is at 40":

so I have to build it with a height of 36-37. All pre-built half-moon console tables are 30-32" high, with the exception of some expensive French Louis antiques which approach 36" tall. So 32" high does not work with chair molding at 40" -- the large 10-12" gap would make the console table look inappropriate. A nice lamp could then be placed on the console table below the painting. There is an antique china cabinet on that dining room wall facing the living room, but I want to change it up. There does need to be a lamp in the corner of the nook, and right now there are armed dining room table chairs. I don't know about "paying bills on a writing desk", since everything is e-pay nowadays. Problem with the nook is that it's really wasted space.

Thinking about this 8x10 wool rug for the dining room (olive & cream):

https://www.houzz.com/products/safavieh-blossom-collection-blm251-rug-ivory-green-8x10-prvw-vr~142601150?share=clipboard

Mmmmmm. If you are eating meals in the tv space, and the only way to get to that space is the end around circuitous route? I must say I hate that!!!

I'd make it my business to look into an art tv with frame on the dining wall. There are thousands of pictures available with the click of an app on your phone. Nobody will realize it's a tv when you have guests: ) for dinner. Sit, dine, THEN go watch the tube. Any decent AV store can help you. If a tv can go over a fire and appear as art? Why NOT in a dining space. With cable or Roku.

(A cable box can go in a closet these days: )

As to the rug? Not a fan. I think a bit "granny" and 287.00 for an 8 x 10 will be nothing but j.u.n.k : )

The two chairs that JAN MOYER suggests in her photos appear to be swivel chairs. And they, or others like them, are always available in various widths and depths, swivel or not, through Lee Industries. Check out their website and their distributors. They can be customized in all kinds of combinations of fiber fills, fabrics, and you can even have them slip covered, too. (I have had a few pairs of them over the years and they wear well.). I like her room suggestions for your space.

Fireplace is faux, inoperable? Consider blocking it up to give you a solid wall between the two windows.

Not all Tiffany is gaudy but almost all of it is eye catching enough it will dominate the rest of your decor choices, and it might not be optimal with your eyecatching shutters. If you are working with solid tapestry fabrics and sturdy furniture, a Tiffany can add jewel like color, bird in flight to an otherwise earthbound setting. But I'm not sure it mixes well with prints or eye catching modern accent pieces, including other glass.

Still, if you love a tiffany, be worth it to make it work!

PS: Just clicked on your rug choice. I think it is great. I would say Tiffany is fine in the vicinity if you are reaching for maximalist eclectic fun, ready to mix it up.

If you aren't talked out of that rug, here is a wonderful 1935 art work to go with it

https://www.chairish.com/product/10636324/1935-arts-crafts-fabric-mosaic-mary-ireland

As to the 1935 painting, no thanks - looks too much like a Vermeer. There's a good Pakistani rug store in the neighborhood (and not in a strip center), now with 75% off - so I'll peruse through their stock.

Regarding TV art for the dining room, no way, but I can see how people might become enamored with that. It's also too blue-collar for me (gimicky). Son's an architect, so I could also hear him laughing about now. I commonly collapse eating and catching up on the news into one epoch of time, then back to academic work. I guess you're into e.g. Pottery Barn(?)

I want to commend Jan. Excellent plan and well done sketches! I also love Demi-lune tables.

" Too blue collar"............WOW! I've got a Mensa (doctor) client with two of them - also an incredible original art and rug collection.

Worth noting? None of us care as to the location of the rug store, though it seems important to you that it not be in a strip mall.

When you "peruse" the stock? I'd leave the attitude at home.

Note: I left out "through" .........it's implied. Be that thoroughly or simply scanning and glancing : )

Thanks Jan, I really like your suggestions on the living room furniture/arrangement, round dining room table, and 8x10 rug size! Already clicked on several of your like buttons and "say thank you" buttons. Will send pics when done.

Just made some measurements in the living room regarding use of an 84" sofa. If it's spaced 1' from the wall that the faux fireplace is on, and there's a 1' deep sofa table on the opposing wall, then there's only a 2' space between the sofa and the table when traversing to the TV room. Not that I need the room, but wouldn't that look tight/crowded? I am thinking there should be about 3' for walking paths between furniture. Hence, I think the length of the sofa might be downsized into the 70-80 inch range.

Would the console table be aligned with the sofa, or positioned on the wall directly across from the fireplace, facing the coffee table between the sofa and the chairs as in Jan's drawing? If it's not aligned with the sofa, then the walking path shouldn't feel that crowded because there will be open space in front of the table and open space at the end of the sofa. Of course, if you'd prefer an apartment-sized sofa, that would work too.

In Jan's drawing there's only an entry into the living room from the foyer. The foyer entrance is about 2.5' wide. However, as shown in my layout, the entrance into the dining room from the living room is about 3', so the wall across from the fireplace starts about 1' left of the mantle. The current sofa table is 5.5' and it almost does not center on the fireplace on that wall. The concern is with the 3 foot-wide opening into the dining room, which displaces the start of the right wall more toward the french doors. Thus, I think a shorter half-moon mahogany console table across from the fireplace would work, with the current longer sofa table remaining at the front window.

Here's a pic of the 2.5'-wide foyer opening and the large 3'-wide opening into the dining room.

Here's a pic looking at the left side of the fireplace mantle from behind the edge of the dining room opening. The beginning of the fireplace mantle is about 1 foot to the right of the edge of the opening. Hence, a long sofa table can't really be centered on that wall across from the fireplace.

An idea for the nook: Make it a reading corner? During the Pandemic, many could have used that space for a mini home office using an antique secretary?

Shame to the elitists! Art whether textile, oil, or whatever is left to the eye of the beholder and their budget. I would encourage one-offs or originals when possible. Galleries, auctions and antique stores...yes even in resale in those dreaded strip malls (sarcasm intended). Amazing how out of touch some are! You do you, west coast granny, or manhattan modern..whatever. Plenty of great thoughts, however.

Slip-covered soft sofas like from Pottery barn so you can wash the cover, else upholstered furniture hard to clean and best to avoid. Then re-paint the horrid grey walls and green walls in a nice pastel. Grey was never a nice color for homes and is on the way out - thankfully. Get ride of the black around the fire place also - use a warm color like terracotta natural tile, or marble tile. For the walls, any light pastel would be nice - light green perhaps, or a light golden hue which is back in style and never really looked out. Use a warm color. Pick out the throw pillows and throws and match paint and drapes to those colors used in furniture. Draw out the room and cut out furniture pieces on heavy poster board and move around. There are many ways to do it and consider what social activities will be in there and traffic patterns of your life. In a nice old house, best not to go too modern and ugly. For the best look, use more traditional or antique furniture. Reproductions look cheap and modern looks cheap. A plain solid color slip-covered (washable) sofa will stay in style forever and you can change out the throw pillow colors, or even the slip cover itself. Hard to say what you might want in the room compared to what myself or others might do - some people put a desk and office area in corner of LR which changes up arrangement. If you are set on wood handled sofa (probably uncomfortable), one suggestion would be a set of daybeds facing each other perpendicular to the fire place. A nice one is the Indonesian at World Market - it is in ugly grey and would need to be painted (decorator white is a good color), and with a twin mattress. Use lots of pillows across the back and sides for comfort and one thicker large long covered foam piece across the back for the back. You can even use queen size matelasse bedspread that wraps over the back and seat and looks like made for it and looks like upholstered finish. Doubles as guest beds or spots for afternoon naps. And all washable. Great look for a nice old house. I saw photos here on Houzz where someone used the two daybeds in an expensive condo. I have been told I could have been a Martha Stewart, but went another direction. I have an eye for nice warm rooms - that does not include grey. Great that it looks like you have the original wood floors and not cheap laminate. They just do not make houses like they used to - great old house.

A rug in dining room??? Ugh. That would be nice if you had green or orange shag wall-to-wall under it - get the idea? :-) There was a short time in history people did that. Not good idea to put rugs in dining rooms where food is served - even the cleanest of people get the rug dirty.

That dark green on the lower walls was popular in the late 1980's. Not sure it is back in YET.

@Kris Ritter - thanks, I think the nook is wasted space - or an afterthought, unless there was an idea back in the day that maybe a sidetable was supposed to be there from which you served food to the table(?) The wasted space dilemma is why I originally was thinking about two smaller chairs positioned in the corner, separated by a small end table with a lamp. The nook just looks bad.

Yes … a sideboard with storage or 2 extra chairs that could be pulled up to the table when needed. Both good ideas.

I can see in looking at your photos a second time that a sideboard might be a challenge due to the window size and placement. Some type of sideboard with shelving above or a small bar on the side wall?

@terrib962 - thanks for the great suggestions. In the living room I tried a lot of different colors. Before going too far, it was a 90s dark beige before the grey. Light greens, light blues, yellows & golds did not work. Modern peach colors & oranges with varying shades didn't work either. (the kitchen and office are light yellow - specifically, kitchen is Jonquin and office Afternoon (by Sherwin-Williams). DR was dark red below chair molding, and very light yellow above, so the yellow had to go. I first tried a combination of light beige and dark blue, but the blue & variations didn't work. Thus, I switched to the vine olive green, which I think goes with the new refinished floors (clear poly on red oak). There was never a rug in the DR, but the floor coating was trashed where the felt-tipped chair legs rubbed on it. There's a lot of info online about ensuring that a rug should extend between 2-3' beyond the edge of a DR table to prevent hardwood floor scratching - and this info is very prevalent. One thing's for certain, after personally sanding/refinishing floors in three rooms, there's no way I even want felt-tipped chair legs to come in contact with the floor. Rationale: a rep at City Floor Supply (NJ) - from whom I purchased the poly, said that on a perfectly clean floor, the slight friction from moving felt tips changes the temperature of the poly, causing cumulative-irreversible damage. Throw in some dirt/grit on the felts tips, and the damage is worse. (the rule is, *never move anything* on a hardwood floor - felt-tip or not - always lift). Another rule is to use rugs in heavy traffic areas. Is the floor below a DR table a heavy traffic area? Yes. Thus, a rug works. About being on a budget, our son (architect) said to never put anything into or do anything to the house (cape), since it's called a "knockdown." The neighborhood has no "historical/heritage" homes and mostly consists of 2-story colonials and capes; whenever a cape goes up for sale, irrespective of condition, it's bulldozed over and replaced with an e.g. $2.5m monstrosity. The 2-story colonials typically survive being knocked down since they list for 1.2 or more. (smaller lease homes can't be knocked down). Any non-essential improvements are palliative instead of therapeutic, i.e., alleviation of symptoms for temporary quality of life improvement --> not an investment. So just one step like job relocation, new job, moving, etc. and this house is gone.

Is that dark green color finished paint? Not very attractive IMO.

"A rug in dining room??? Ugh. That would be nice if you had green or orange shag wall-to-wall under it - get the idea? :-) There was a short time in history people did that."

I think you got stuck in the orange shag decade???? Most lovely dining spaces HAVE an AREA rug : ) appropriate to table and room dimensions

Thankfully, the edge to edge orange or any color CARPET has long sailed

@vgrimm - it sounds like your comment implies "expand your horizons, and augment your search for decor with inclusion of galleries, auctions, antique stores, and strip centers." Whether in-person or online, where is the additional time going to come from?

Jan, I thought the same thing about ˆthe "rug in the dining room???" comment. The majority of dining room inspiration photos on Houzz feature area rugs, and so do the majority of houses with which I'm personally familiar. Sometimes people express the oddest opinions on this site as if they are incontrovertible truth.

wrktsv, you've shared pictures of your space and some ideas (the rug and the console table you're considering, and mention of an upcoming impressionist painting), but aside from knowing that your house is a 1930s Cape Cod, I don't really have a sense of your decorating style. Could you post a picture or two of inspiration rooms that speak to you? I'm particularly trying to get a sense of your preferences when it comes to color (bright or moody?), formality vs. informality, traditional vs. eclectic, etc.

@Alyssa - thanks will look for some pics, but mostly bright, formal, traditional - but it depends on lighting. Regarding colors, I've learned the hard way that you just can't go into a room and say e.g. I want to evaluate yellow tones, blue tones, and green tones. Since I believe lighting dictates which color to use. Thus I can't really say which colors I like. The kitchen and office are lighter yellows which are accentuated by sunlight - which to me is uplifting. Light blues and light greens are out for me. Yellows, beiges, ivory, cream, dark reds, dark greens, and grays (obviously) work, but oranges and peaches are too moody to me.

Can you recommend furniture placement in the back 10x15' room (which was an office) using pics below? This room has a closet for outerwear (doors are off now) and a small closet with 4' tall door below the stairs -- for storage, suitcases, etc. The furniture in this room is a brown velour sleeper sofa under the windows, a desk on the far wall, and book shelves on the closest wall. I have not hung the artwork yet. About having an office downstairs, I have heard some friends complain about having an office downstairs, like it trashes the look of a house. So while sanding/refinishing the floors over the last month, I moved the desk/computer/books upstairs to an empty bedroom. Should I leave them there?

@Jan - I picked up some high quality hand-knotted rugs & pads - one is an Iranian 8x12' made in the 1950s and never used/owned (image above - it's absolutely unreal!), and the other two are Indian (pics below). Also just finished installing red oak clear poly shoe molding everywhere, and touch up painting with small art brushes.

Here's an nice Indian green-cream-beige that is an 8x10 for the DR (don't mind all the dirt on the AC intake vent - it's from sanding the floors, I need to pressure wash these outside):

Finally the Indian 9x12' in the living room: (fyi - there's a large 3' polished brass fireplace cover which looks like a flower with 12 pedals - not shown. i also just gave the mantle a second coat of oil-based, so nothing's on it).

@Alyssa - when looking at references for the water-based Loba (German) polyurethane I used (base coat: Invisible Protect AT - matte; two coats of Duo 2K - satin), I found some pics of a private home in Cape Town, SA, which used the matte finish. I think the floor/wall/trim colors & artwork in these pics are terrific (link below). Most of the reps at hardwood flooring stores like the matte finish, which makes the wood look raw:

https://www.loba.de/us_en/services/references/kirk-private-home

Also, this wine bar in Brazil has nice color choices - check out the wood colors - wow:

https://www.loba.de/us_en/services/references/campinas-winebar

I think I'm getting a sense of your style--traditional and formal, as you say, but I'm not sure I would have described it as "bright." Colorful rather than monochromatic, yes, but if the rugs in your pictures and the wall colors in your inspiration photos are anything to go by, you seem drawn to darker, more substantial tones rather than bright (as in light and airy) colors.

If you have an empty bedroom available and you feel an office makes your house look less inviting, I don't see any reason why you can't keep your desk, books etc upstairs--unless of course you're in and out of the office constantly, and the trek upstairs is impractical. What do you want to use the back room for, if you move the office upstairs? Would you keep the sleeper sofa in the back room to use it as an overflow guest room, or move it upstairs with the desk and books so the office can double as a guest room?

The shlep upstairs after each workday for renovation (email, web, streaming news/movies) has not been that bad, and I realize that the backroom will need to be a guest bedroom if I leave office materials upstairs. But I have been thinking about buying a desk with drawers for better organization, as the current one does not have drawers. Then keep this room as an office, but maybe keep books upstairs. An issue I noticed was that whenever I smoked salmon/chicken in the back yard on the wood-burning grill, I always carried the food and BBQ sauce through the office, through the utility room to the back door. This resulted in getting the room dirty mostly from in/out traffic from the kitchen -- but I also wore shoes inside/outside on the old floors. Now with new floors, I think I'll place the grill outside the side door and then just go in/out directly from the kitchen (w/o going through the office). With refinished floors, I have to change my habits on traffic patterns - especially carrying food. Food seems to be one of the biggest factors involved in getting a house dirty.

Now that floors are refinished and everything is painted, with hand made rugs placed, I wanted to show an idea of filling in the nook in the DR with some of the wooden-armed DR table set chairs, plus an existing end table and lamp. It's just an idea.

I'd put a really great BAR cart there and call it a day. Leave it set up. Or is that too " Blue Collar" ? I shall say right in advance, they are enjoyed in homes of all types and at all price points since forever.. You might even spill less food in transportation.

Great idea! Thanks Jan.

A dining room rug should be large enough that a person can pull out a chair to sit without the rear legs of the chair going off the rug.

Finally finished making a 37" tall half-moon console table. Mahogany, tapered legs, skirted apron, after 2nd coat of satin polyurethane. Rationale for making the tall table was that the chair-moulding in the targeted room is at 40" and almost *everything* you can buy is 30-32" tall. It's better making it, since it's solid mahogany, hand-made, not a machine-made import with veneer -- hardwood alone costs $600. Priceless!