Joy Beth's Profile

My dining room is 9'1" wide--although perhaps a bit longer. Regardless, I feel your pain. I would build/buy some sort of hutch for the dishes where that red art is and get rid of the bookshelf that is taking up a foot of space from the narrow side and center that table in the room. Added bonus, you could seat 4 if you needed to.

We have them in a few rooms in our house. I painted the ones in my daughters room sky blue, and am ignoring the ones in the Dining room (as they too fall into the someday category). However one night I couldn't stand it anymore and started ripping them off my bedroom ceiling...and as it turns out there was an oak ceiling underneath. It was beautiful and I have no idea why anyone would ever cover it up. Maybe what's underneath isn't so scary.