One Room Challenge: Week Two -Second Floor Landing

This week I thought a lot about trying to achieve visual balance in the upstairs landing.  This area is tricky because it has some strong visual elements fighting each other for the center horizontal axis of the room.

On the stair's side, the cutout that looks down to the flight below and the stair's landings are laid out symmetrically.
  

On the opposite wall, a door to the left of the bookcase disrupts the symmetry. The bookcase is centered on the shorter wall.

This makes this room feel wanky. The bookcase is definitely fighting with the table on who is the center of attention.

I realized that one way to deal with this problem is to use a runner in front of the bookcases that runs almost the full length of the room. 

Also, placing a more substantial chair at the end of the bookcases will help to balance things out with the long table.

I have neither the rug nor the chair, so I've been searching… 

The rug will be persian, not quite sure yet on the chair. I've got to get busy.

You can see week one of this challenge here. And please do go see the other linking participants over at Calling it Home, you won't regret it!