Just some thoughts:

a) Could you switch the living room and the dining room?

b)OR: remove the bookcase and move the dining set back towards the wall (even a few inches can make a huge difference!) ......

c)Enlarge the opening between the living room and dining area ..... and then add a couple of swivel chairs in front of the fireplace .....

Love your ideas to switch the flooring -- and paint the room in a soft color (maybe Indian White by Benjamin Moore?) and to whitewash the brick of the fireplace .... those changes will radically change the look and feel of all of those spaces!

Knock down that wall between the dining area and family room to open up the whole space.

and I'd reverse the rooms. Make the FP room the family room.

Ack, Teacats and I had the same thought, to switch the rooms. :-) and to open up that area between the DR and LR.

That's the same thought my mom in law has! Maybe that would workout. We are asking our GC next week about removing the separation wall and putting a post (not my favorite option) or putting a beam if needed. This isn't our furniture, we move in Tuesday! Our dining room table will be facing the horizontal direction to open ups peace and there will be no bookcase, sorry I should have clarified that. Also, This is inside the house that is the curb appeal desert landscape post.

The kitchen and dining wall will have a pass through countertop about 5ft wide. That project starts in a week.

If you switch the dining area and the family room you wouldn't have direct access to dining from the kitchen, you would have to travel through the family room wouldn't you? I wouldn't mind doing that if you don't have children but I can't imagine doing so long term if you have a young family. If the kitchen is an eat in kitchen and you only use the dining room occasionally I think it would work fine.

That was my thought too...seems like a long way to haul food and dishes on a regular basis. I think the fireplace is sort of interesting but yeah, it looks like it belongs in a family room.

My inlaws have a huge fireplace in their dining area of their new kitchen, and it is nice to have that ambience at dinner sometimes. And they also have some additional seating in there- not in front of the fire but in front of a window. I'd keep brainstorming about how to make your fireplace room work as a dining room. Putting down your wood floor and losing the carpet might make it feel less like a family room too.

This post was edited by coll_123 on Sun, Sep 14, 14 at 16:42

Would def not switch the rooms for reasons stated above. Would use a round table in that space, I think, or a rectangular one positioned horizontally as you propose, fairly close to the proposed pass through to the kitchen. I would also make that an arched pass thru and a little larger if possible.

The obvious problem with the fireplace is that it curves far into the room and takes up more than its fair share of floor square footage. With the table placement as you describe you might get a few chairs in front of the fireplace, but even that may look awkward. I think I would open up the room as much as possible to the FR using an ibeam and not columns, which would only further visually confuse the room. Then I would look for, or have made, a curved bench to sit a foot or so from the hearth. Depending on your decorating style, this could be a fabulous brass fireplace fender with leather cushions, or a simple upholstered bench. Both would be low and of course people would sit on it facing the room, making the FP more of a backdrop. Anything else is going to be tricky in terms of furniture placement, as the radius of the hearth will dictate having sofa and chairs far enough away from the heat source to look odd.

The layout looks interesting, but complicated. If there is a good interior designer in your area I would consider hiring him or her just to help you sort out furniture placement. And I would consult,the person before your GC makes any structural changes.

Good luck with your project!

Some areas of the country restrict the use of wood-burning fireplace, which yours looks to be. You might want to think about removing the fireplace. I have been looking into it with a corner fireplace, and my problem is getting matching floor tiles. Since you are going to put down hardwood, that wouldn't be an issue.

Is the dining room your only room to eat in? If not, do you really need a pass through from the kitchen?