I finally had to admit something to myself. Even though having a separate dining room was on our wishlist when we were looking for our first house, we have only eaten in there a handful of times since moving in six years ago. On the other hand, Bradley uses his office for doing freelance work at our house every day. I hated that he was tucked away and secluded so much of the time. So I asked if he would be interested in moving his office downstairs. He could have easy access to the kitchen and when I’m home, we can see each other more. We decided to give it a try. 
We did not repaint this time and we haven’t changed the light fixture, but we did move the bookshelves around to better accommodate his L-shaped desk. I got his orange curtains up and all of his vintage cameras on the shelves, but we haven’t worked on changing out the art yet. We still have three large Ikea frames that we purchased years ago for his office, but never found artwork for them.
I wasn’t ready to throw in the dining room “towel” yet, so for now the table and chairs are acting as a crafting table in the abandoned upstairs office. I bought a wooden folding table for that rare occasion that we would need a place for guests to eat.