shee, here are my chairs and the disgusting insides! Lots and lots of cotton. Looks like when they recovered they just added another layer of cotton. I'm sure at one time they were soft, but right now they are hard as a rock. HA! I want mine really comfortable because I will be sitting in these chairs a lot. My back likes a straight back chair vs a soft sofa or soft chair. My chairs measure 14" at the back and 19" at the front. Then 16" from front to back at the middle. OK Shee, open up those seats and let's see what ya got. LOL

Nanny - We must have cross posted. Yeah, if the new foam doesn't work it just doesn't work. I'll take it as a lesson for next time! I have a side chair that goes with an old claw foot desk I need to redo. Maybe I'll also add some cushion to the kitty bed. If I look on the bright side it could've been a more expensive mess up! I managed to get the corners pretty good I think. I'll go over them with a hammer. The gun I'm using now is a Fasco. I think it takes special staples but don't know if I can use a different size with it. Like I said it does seem to be working good. I'll keep it in mind for future projects!

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions so far. les: I agree the green is not an exact match and don't feel repainting the accent wall is a big deal. The interior designer I was working with at Ethan Allan choose a color scheme around my paints and while pretty, the overall feeling was sage and I told her I was concerned I may grow tired of that color and I also want to pull in a little something from the red family. One thing she suggested though I agree with is that it needs to remain light as windows are a northern exposure. Thanks for showing the fabric for the chairs in my picture. It is very close. I'll see if I can order a swatch and then once I choose my rug, one or the other may grab. johnatemp: Love the pic of your sofa. That is the effect I am striving for with the colorful cushions that can be swapped and changed over the years if I want a different look. Funny with the plaid I took very similar pic to one you posted and showed it to DH and he put thumbs down--though I personally liked it. With the roman shades I was hoping for something with more interest when down and also a scalloped shape when up as I feel the 8' wide window needs some curves to balance it out. Thanks for the suggestion though with PB as I didn't know they also did the shades. That is what I am thinking of pairing the two--but different color combination from RH. My color scheme will actually be similar to yours. jerseygirl: Glad to hear you are happy with the quality at CC. I'm in CA, but thanks anyway for the Wilks suggestion. piper: Yes, I'm loving that find also. I did get a mirror on Craigslist and ordered a set of buffet lamps for the sideboard. Will post when I get ready to hang. Found a set of matching drum tables today on Craigslust--only the are over 1 hr. drive away, but a good price. Still thinking what to do. tina: Hard to tell from the pics--but it's all the same floral--just different views. I definitely want to do the floral. It's actually quite similar to one an Interior Designer at Ethan Allan had selected for me which is double the cost that I can do this one at CC.

I definitely think Val's shield back are better quality than the first. Check the corners in particular, they are mitered and the profile of the carving turns the corners beautifully. The first looks like it's one solid piece and then routed out. Also the color on the carving perfectly matches the chair and is probably the same kind of wood whereas on the first one up top it looks more yellow to me and would make me wonder if it was a different kind of wood. I also really like the band 2/3 of the way down on Val's chair that breaks up the flatness of the splats. red, those are pretty neat chairs too. It's interesting how ornate the carving is on the legs compared to the back, but it all looks nice in that pic. The back is a bit different than you see commonly, so that's cool too. I also really love chairs where the seat feels more upholstered rather than screw on and re-cover, but it costs more to have them redone - which means you'd better pick something you like the first time you have them done. I believe this is indicative of an older chair. Sometimes a bargain is not such a bargain. The chairs I got were $100 a piece, which sounds good, until you realize that I gave them to a guy for a professional cleaning and polish and then reupholstering (the whole seat had to be rebuilt) and that added another $150/chair, but they are perfect. I bought the fabric myself on ebay for a steal (7 yards for 7 chairs, how lucky is that? I think I paid about $50 with shipping) I've been looking for more of the blue dragonflies for well over a year now and haven't seen it ANYWHERE. Here's what the chair looked like before (broken seat, horrible old fabric, the cat loved it though) After the cleanup/reupholstery: very dusty floor, sorry, it was during a time when we were stil doing work. I think it's funny that shieldback chairs are "back in" now. When I bought these from my antique dealer friends, they had them for years with no interest (of course I didn't know they had them because they were buried in the back room). I think they ended up selling them to me for less than they paid for them, just to get rid of them and they still ended up costing me a lot. I probably could have done some of that work myself (like the cleaning and polishing) but I was commuting 4 hrs a day at the time and was not looking for yet another DIY project.