Have you considered the good old incandescent? We have two chandeliers w/dimmers in our house that use the candle-type bulbs. I have stock-piled a stash of the incandescent type. The are still found in stores, and come (came) in 25w as well as 40w.

I appreciate the suggestion about the incandescents, but I'd rather not have years worth of bulbs stashed away. We've had CFL's in the past, but I hate that they take a while to warm up. I really like the LED's, it's just that they don't seem bright enough. I've checked out other manufacturers and did find some bulbs that are around 140 lumens. I may just bite the bullet and buy them. At around $90 for bulbs, it is a bit hard to swallow. I'm not sure if it will yield that much of a difference.

DH and I have talked about this problem and are seriously considering another option. We're going to have our windows in the dining nook replaced. This will raise the level of the bottom sill so we can build in a window seat. Right now the sill is about 6" off the ground. While this is open, we're going to see if we can extend power for sconces on either side of the large center window. Ironically, the cost for two single arm sconces is about $60. We already have the wiring and electrical stuff from the recessed lights we installed.

Here's a pic of the window. It's a very old picture from our original demo and temp kitchen setup. I have flooring guys working in there now and can't snap a new picture with the new chandelier without getting in the way.

Potential Sconce
http://www.lowes.com/pd_359433-2121-2984-SC-1_4294715753__?productId=3513960&Ns=p_product_avg_rating:1