Dining room decorating suggestions please

We have a 1930s bungalow. If you look at its original footprint, it is absolutely tiny. The old living room is the room the front door opens into (the house has been added onto and has a big family room in the back, so this room is basically a thruway). I don't know how anyone made that a living room as due to the location of the windows, stairs to the upstairs, front door, and doorway (which originally had french doors) to the dining room, there isn't a single wall large enough for a sofa! lol. I guess the house wasn't built for a large family and maybe they just wanted a few arm chairs to sit in.

The dining room is the next room you will find and it's seldom used. It's not that it's a fancy room, it's just that it tends to be more of a walkway into the rest of the house and the poor table gets ignored for meals more often than it should. I painted those two front rooms the same mustard yellow color we painted at our rental house, loved it that much, but added a dark red wall (after six coats of paint, I don't think I will do that again!). I would not have painted that red wall had I known three years later we would be given the room divider from my parents. Funny that it's called that as in my parents house I don't remember it ever being anywhere but up against a wall. It is the same on both sides except the doors only open on one side. It was the first piece of furniture my parents purchased with their wedding money (I believe that was in 1967). There is lots of sun shining in the windows today, but on a cloudy day the room divider just gets lost against the red wall. The red is a huge improvement over the white walls with gold cherub angels holding pink ribbons that were painted there previously.

It's definitely a 60s piece of furniture. So in order to tone down those details, I used a quilted wall hanging made and given to me by my husband's Aunt Patti. It fit perfectly to cover the the front of the doors and the shelf. Did I make a good choice? Please ignore the items to the left and underneath the room divider that I thought were 'hiding.'   : )

This piece of furniture is also where I put everything breakable. lol. It's a mix of lots of things that I love, but they don't exactly fit into the prim style I've fallen in love with in the past few months. The crab cookie jar (I'm a self-proclaimed crab! : )  ), the dragonfly vases my mother-in-law gave to me a year ago for Christmas (I have loved dragonflies for years now), my favorite green leaf pottery from a local potter, our wedding album, the red and yellow glass vase that we saw being made on our honeymoon in St. Augustine, Florida, and a few wedding photos on top of one of the placemats (dragonflies again!) my sister Cathy made for me a few years ago along with a book my sister Denise gave to me this Christmas.

It's funny how I didn't notice the dust until I take photos and upload them to my blog. Eeek!

There are four of these wall sconces in the dining room. Ick. Shiny brass is not my thing. These can't be the original shades either as you can see they don't even fit. I can't wait to get my hands on some black spray paint. I think I can live with the white shades if I can get rid of the shiny brass. Has anyone ever sprayed sconces like this? Any suggestions? I'm thinking that I can get away with just masking off the wall with painter's tape and newspaper, shutting the power off, taking out the bulb and protecting that area, and just spraying them that way without having to take them down.

And here is the chair that I mentioned in my previous post. It definitely needs a chair pad! The little stool was made by my son last year in school (age 12). I used it as a prop while taking some pictures for my etsy shop. I'm thinking of making a little hooked rug for the top, but can't see adding tacks to it, so it might just be a hooked rug mat that I end up sitting on top. lol.

And lastly, the grace I grew up saying before dinner. My mom found it at a craft fair a few years ago and it matched my dining room wall colors perfectly. Believe me, they are mustard. Can't seem to capture the color on the camera.

We don't have a lot of furniture and most of it is secondhand from family and friends, but a lot of our house is empty. I mean we have what we need, but looking at some of your blogs and your decor that are definitely not empty, our house is empty in comparison! My husband loves seeing empty spots. I find comfort in being surrounded by 'things.' I moved around a few bookshelves in my craft room a few weeks ago, ended up putting them all next to each other in a corner, and I absolutely love it. My stitching chair faces these shelves along with the TV, and I find it extremely cozy that I can't see the wall. lol. Hubs and I are definitely on opposite ends of the decor spectrum, but I hope we can meet somewhere in the middle.

Okay, off to do some dusting! : )