I am moving to a new town home and my living ...

I think that you should start from choosing the righ table. It shouldn't be to big or too small but what is most important is should be dissolvabled - to make it bigger when the guest would come and smaller on your everyday life. Try to choose also bookstands and cabinets that would be higher and have a lot of shelves - to give you a chance of putting everything there. And if you want to make it visibly larger you should paint it on light colors - maybe yellow or white and it would look defenitely better than in dark colors.

I hope that this will help just a little bit and personally - i think that you dinning room isn't so small actually.

Anna 1983 has the right idea. I would also add that having a tape measure and a graph paper with your room layout when shopping really helps to get a visual of things before you actually buy. I recently visited Crate&Barrel where they had whole floor just for the furniture and found it gave me a good perspective. I didn't buy there (I can only afford second hand) but I got a chance to check out in person how small scale compares to bulky and overstuffed. I ended up purchasing to small love seats for my living room instead of one large couch. You could also check out BetterHomesandGardens(BHG.com) for more ideas on making the most of smaller spaces. Hope this helped and good luck to you!