I love Farrow & Ball's grey/brown tones. For subtle shades, they really have a wonderful selection I like London Stone, which is pretty much my favorite paper bag brown. Get the swatch chart, and have your local paint store match it in whatever base you like. Having said that, I think that a dining room is the least interesting place for a great rug. You don't look at it while you're in the room, chairs and feet scrape back and forth on it, and it's a pain to move everything to vacuum all the dropped crumbs. Here is a link that might be useful: Farrow & Ball

I went out one last time today, and found another rug. Now I have 2 "finalists", neither being without faults! The new choice has a mostly very light golden oak background a little lighter than the floor for both the main field and the main border--in other words, it seems to be a bit too much of the same thing. It has a black edge, black in the background of the two 1-1/2" borders on each side of the main border, and black scattered about in small doses throughout some of the rest of the design, including part of the medallion. Most of the medallion is a rust color that is close enough to the henna in my other rug that it looks ok. There's very little green in this rug. It's a beautiful densely knotted rug. Negatives-- this rug doesn't look good with the paint (we're not repainting!) or the furniture, and when the sun shines, watch out!-- it really looks like a bright gold, and it costs more. Other than the intensity of the light colored background, this rug seems to balance with the other two rugs as far as the overall look, and it looks better at night. So if we never had the money to replace the 9x12, I wouldn't feel like the room is out of whack. The "black" rug--the other colors in it look good with the paint, the coverings on the chairs that go around the table on it, the present sofa, the other rug in the same room, and the floor. The only negative is that it makes that part of the room so dark, especially at night, that I can almost feel the floor tilting down over there! Also, it seems to be too much for the blue (which looks gorgeous in the daytime, and dark at night) in the DR. If I choose this rug, it seems like my only choice to balance all three rugs would be to get a dark rug to replace the 9x12, and I really don't like the idea of 3 dark rugs. annz, the design of all of the rugs is somewhat related. The experienced daughter of the owner of the decades old place where I got the one rug has been very helpful, given the various constraints I have in choosing this rug. If you could see the color this floor makes the rugs appear, you'd probably understand why I'm giving it the importance I am. Your email did not show up on the screen, BTW. sujafr, thanks for the explanation for posting pictures. DH said he'd try to help me get some pictures loaded some time tomorrow. ideefixe, I'm not looking for antique tribal rugs, just handmade ones with traditional designs. Your suggestion to have a carpet company make a rug for the time being is a good one, except that I need the rug by Sunday! Thank you all for your posts. I hope I'll have the pictures up tomorrow. Anne

It all looks like it works well to me. However, I moved the photographs so they are both at the SAME level -- do not stagger them, it looks unprofessional and is jarring to the eye -- and all of the art work, the photos as well as the scrolly thing, should all be hung so that they are at eye level. So basically the height of the photograph at left.

The is the rug in my Living room which adjoins with dining room so they have to somewhat coordinate