I have a post on here asking about my office color. And your hooker piece is EXACTLY the one I am eyeing for my office..... in the same color way. Have you seen it IRL? It's not a solid black. It's rubbed with some reds and bronzes, etc. It's really beautiful, so those who suggested the rub have a great idea. That's the beauty of hooker... they do several "layers" and their pieces have so much dimension. I love the piece your hubby made. It's beautiful! I wish he could whip one up for me, too. :o) ha, ha. I vote for painting it like hooker. If you get the doors faux finished with the brown on the doors, that will pull in your leather sectional. And the black really doesn't look like a black hole IRL. Your photoshopped hooker piece isn't doing it justice. Seriously jaw-dropping in person. So I vote for the black. I do see you are thinking espresso, and that would look good. But if you don't FLIP over the espresso, please consider the black rub. Have your painter do a few colors dry brushed onto the black. I think you'll love it!! :o)

We have the PB Logan in black and love it. The quality has been just fine actually. I was a bit worried but at the time, we really had no other option. We had just bought our 55" TV (or should I say DH's 55" TV. LOL!) three weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit and bought just a console for the bottom which arrived a week before the storm hit. Thank goodness. We came back to find that we'd had about 22" of water. That piece that came a week before the storm saved the new TV! Well, we had to refurnish our whole house and I decided I wanted more storage and a bigger piece. I looked at every furniture store in New Orleans for something to house a 55" TV. Everything (at the time) was made for a 50" TV but stopped just short of the dimensions of our TV. But the PB Logan fit the bill. We love it. It's a very nice piece. It's sturdy and has yet to get a scratch or anything on it and we do rotate our TV a bit sometimes. Hope that helps a bit!

Aestheically, I think it works much better across from the window. But, if it works much better for you near the fireplace that is what I would do--it's your house and you live there. So for me, I would just see which would annoy me more--the crowded fireplace wall or the glare/inability to see the TV from the kitchen. I think the best solution would be to mount above the fireplace. That would eliminate the crowded fireplace wall; allow for kitchen watching; give you plenty of seating. My sister has a very small room wtih the tv over the fireplace and there is no trouble with viewing.

You know your own needs best. Comparing cubic feet is only the first issue. Different fridges are organized differently and will hold more or less of your actual stuff depending on how they're designed. If you don't have a good handle on what's in your fridge when it's full, take daily pictures for a couple of weeks, morning and evening, so that you capture the new groceries as well as the containers of partially prepped, fully prepped, cooked foods, and leftovers. Don't forget the doors. Do you love gallon jugs? If so, do you love having them in the door? Or do you want them colder and on a shelf. Do you want your shelves deep enough for a platter or shallow enough that you don't lose stuff in the back? Do you love specialized compartments, like an egg keeper, deli drawer, 2 liter cradle? Or are those wasted space gewgaws to you that make it difficult because they don't hold enough or are in the way? Go to the appliance showrooms and try them all out. Compare your pictures. Measure your food if you have to. Choose the fridge that actually works for you. Also, assess freezer space. Do you freeze food you've cooked? Or want to? I was brought up with the idea that it's just as easy to cook two chickens as one, and with a really good freezer that makes instant meals for when you don't have the time or inclination to cook. Lots of foods freeze really well. If that sounds attractive, maybe you need an all fridge and an all freezer, instead of two fridge/freezer combos. Unless you have dual compressors (I think you were originally talking about SubZero, which does have them), separate units work better. If all of that sounds dreadful, maybe less freezer space is the way to go. My own idea of what someone in your position might need if you shop infrequently, live in a warm climate, and/or entertain large groups, is a 36" over/under SubZero, a spare fridge with minimal freezer space, and a full sized freezer. If you cook less and shop more, then the 36" plus a full sized spare fridge with a decent sized freezer should be plenty. But then we get to what you want. Do you want a 48" fridge? Do you prefer a side by side to an over under? Are water and ice dispensers important to you? Back to what I said before. You have to choose your fridge to suit your own needs and desires. (Just for comparison, I decided against SubZero because I didn't like the current layout, and especially how deep the door shelves were. I got Miele 30" all fridge and all freezer, 24" fridge drawers which hold standing tall bottles for prep, and my old coil shelf upright freezer in the garage.)