I get that we need to define the dining room as a dining room and not toy room, but if the toys are not visible in the cubes wouldn't that work as well? Not a traditional "buffet" but I think it is nice enough to work especially if I put some decorative serving pieces or something else "dining room-ish" on the top. With those against the long wall there would be plenty of room for a table and some chairs. There would be no toys visible in the dining room unless they open they pull the bins out.
I think this would be fine.
Maybe I was a kook when I was house-hunting, but I really didn't mind seeing a few toys or peoples' personal pictures around houses I was looking at.
Here's what I was interested in:
~Did the overall condition of the house correlate to the asking price & location? I don't care if your house is a palace..if it's backing up to the railroad tracks or a Home Depot, it's not worth as much. Conversely, if your house is a tired haggard pig sty, don't think I am going to pay through the nose for it because it is in "the best neighborhood in town".
~How much would I have to do to make it liveable? Not to make it to my taste, not to add my personal touches, not to redecorate...to make it
livable.
~Did the kitchen have a double sink? That was a big ticket item for me.
~Did the livingroom/family room have a fireplace?
~Closet space
~Size of the "public" areas of the house. I was much more interested in nice sized livingroom, family room and dining room areas than I was in large bedrooms. My opinion is that I am not entertaining a crowd in my bedroom
but might very well be entertaining a crowd in my home, so th place where I would put the crowd has to be big.
~It was DH's job to look at plumbing, furnaces and that sort of stuff...the basement stuff, as I called it.
So, do things that will make the house seem bigger...light colors, lots of natural light, less clutter. Get rid of some knick-knacks, but it is still your home, so a few pictures or much-loved items are OK in my book.
I'll tell you our house story. Our house is an 1800 SF Cape Cod style on a secondary road (connects 2 main roads) in a nice suburban town about 1:15 north of NYC. The previous owner had built it in 1940 and lived in it till the day he died. When we bought the house, it had a good sized livingroom, a huge kitchen, a good sized 1st floor master bedroom, a smaller 1st floor 2nd bedroom, a full bath downstairs and 2 more bedrooms upstairs and a 1 car garage underneath. The livingroom, master BR, 2nd BR and front and back hallways were carpeted with olive green sculptured carpet. The bathroom was 1940's pink and gray tile with a faux marble formica vanity, also in pink and gray. Oh, and there was pink and gray butterfly wallpaper on the walls. The kitchen had been redone, with beautiful golden oak cabinets, high quality. It had also been panelled in golden oak panelling...lots of oak, making it seem cave-like. It had avocado green appliances and the ugliest vinyl floor you have ever seen. People actually exclaimed when they came into my house "My God, that is the ugliest vinyl floor I have ever seen!". But, it had good bones, was a well-built house, in a great neighborhood, close to work and family for both DH and I. I stepped into the front door of this house and said to myself "This is MY house".
So, I looked at what I could do to make it liveable. Pulled up the carpet and found gorgeous perfect hardwood(because it had been covered by carpet all its life). Took down the panelling in the kitcehn, then took down the 2 layers of wallpaper under the panelling in the kitchen (surprise!), then painted the kitchen walls white. Took down the butterfly wallpaper in the bathroom and painted the walls white. Basically painted all the walls white throughout the entire house. Once all that was done, the ugly kitchen floor, the avocado appliances and the pink & gray bathroom looked...somewhat better. The ugly kitchen floor, while ugly, was actually in pretty good shape so we decided to live with it. The avocado appliances worked, so we decided to live with them and replace them as they broke. The pink and gray bathroom was clean and all plumbing worked so I bought bathroom accessories that "worked" with it and lived with it.
Through the years we have lived here, we have done lots to the house to update, improve and upgrade, but our immediate goal upon purchase was to make it liveable.
Your house overall sounds nicer than mine was to start, so I think you've got the whole "liveable" thing under control already. So, clear out clutter, put away some knick-knacks, keep it fairly clean and picked up and you sound like you should do OK. But you've still got to go on with your life while your house is on the market, so don't make yourself crazy. When I looked at peoples' houses, I always remembered that I was in someone's home, not a museum.
We looked at two houses (our #1 and #2 houses) with floorplans that were 98% the same, one had a single sink (in a newly refinished kitchen) and the other (the one we bought) had a DOUBLE sink (in the newly refinished kitchen).
, but you catch my drift. It was a BIG factor for me.
One couple didn't buy my first house because there were many children who played outside in the neighborhood, and they couldn't bear to see children around. 
! I've seen kitchens that people just don't bother to care that they are selling-dirty dishes, food all over-that was a real turn off for me.
