I'm in the Uk and bought Annie Sloan paints a couple of year ago to paint some pieces of furniture. I attended a course run by the stockist and made a good job of a small tilt top table and a poor job of a mahogany coffee table (it was quite hot weather and I think that was the problem. However now I have a new one. All of my Annie Sloan paints were purchased about 4 years ago. There are 8 cans of which 2 have been opened and part used. They are all stored in my 2nd bedroom, my craft room, which is warm and dry. I keep them in the plastic tubs that come with Ikea trofast units and saw that one had gone rogue and was sitting on another shelf in the room. When I picked it up & could see that the back of the can was full of holes along the seam and paint was leaking out. A can of Emilie, Chateau Grey and one of Olive were similarly affected (Chateau Grey had about 30% used and resealed. The other 2 cans hadn't even been opened. I contacted AS UK and was told that they had changed their can supplier in 2016 (I wonder why!) and that the paint only had a shelf life of 12 months so, as a goodwill gesture, they would send me one can out. I've since checked the other 5 cans and even the previously unopened ones are rotting from the inside. The ones that are intact have what appears to be perfect paint in them. I want my 3 cans replacing and 5 empty new cans sent out to decant the rest into. I've rung around several stockists and they all say things like the cans last for ever, no shelf life. oh they found a can that was 15 (or 25 according to who was telling the tails!) years, opened it and it was fine to use. AS won't budge on only replacing one can so thats £160 pounds worth of paint wasted. My own stockist is horrified at what I've told her and has said that she has had some of the cans for longer than a year and that no-one has ever said there's a shelf life of 12 month. They say they've now put info on their cans stating it should be used within 12 month of purchase but your can might have been sitting on the shelf for some time. A bunch of liars and cheaters who wont admit to a problem. Buy something else.

Paint -- any kind -- will likely emphasize any nicks in your table top. Better to invest in a relatively inexpensive electric hand sander and some finish stripper and, after taping a protective thick plastic skirt around the rest of the table, strip only the table top. Let it dry before you sand it and remove the dust before you apply a new top finish ... doesn't need to perfectly match with the rest of the table so you could make it lighter or darker or clear and let the natural finish be visible.

I agree with your boyfriend... I don't think you want the entertainment center and the hutch all in a row. You could tape some poster board to the wall and see how the spacing would look for vertical placement. I wouldn't want the top picture more than a few inches higher than the hutch, and the bottom one could be the same distance above the chair rail as the glass in the hutch doors. (Does the 67" include the crown molding?) Flanking the hutch is not bad... but my brain always sees that situation as the hutch having ears.

I experimented with chalk paint on an interior wood door and much to my regret, I do not like it! Can I stain over the chalk paint?