buehl, hello and I'm glad you weren't hurt when the chair broke. From what I hear this is getting to be more of a problem with chairs from non-American sources when the wood hasn't cured properly before it was used for furniture. Although it sounds as if this was not the cause of the problem in your case. I've benefited greatly many times from your advice in the kitchen forum and I hope what I'm passing on is helpful for your situation. We just had a discussion with our KD about doing a built in TV/media console in our great room. Our kitchen perimeter is white Brookhaven and we also had white Brookhave bookcases built in for the great room that is part of the same space as the kitchen. When we discussed the TV/media console with the KD I said I envisioned it as matching the bookcases and the kitchen that are all part of the same space. He was very tactful but let me know that he felt that matching the TV/media console with the bookcases would be too much matching. If I can translate his suggestion for your space this is what I think he would say: match the china cabinet with your kitchen (this would be the equivalent of my bookcases matching my kitchen) and then do your dining table and chairs a coordinating but different wood finish. Your kitchen is really very lovely and I can envision the china cabinet in the long view through your kitchen in the same finish as your kitchen cabinets but with your table and chairs as a lively accent in between. Good luck with your choices.

Lyban, I'm awful at visualizing colors together but why don't you go to a paint store and get a fan deck? Sometimes they'll give it to you for free if they know you'll be using their paints. Usually they cost about $5.00. Along with the fan deck, they have tons of glossy pictures of rooms with various colors you can take home to look at.

I love love love color and was determined to use it in every room when we first bought our house. But it was a real challenge to find the right balance. After painting each room 2,3 or more times, we finally scaled the color back a bit and ended up with RL Gold Finch in our kitchen. It's a sunny color, very much like the yellow in the picture from RMS. Our walk-in pantry (formally the laundry room) and 1 wall in the hallway is Behr Grass Cloth which is a close match to the green in that same photo. We originally tried a beige in the living room, but it opens into the kitchen and I didn't care for how the Beige worked with the yellow, so we opted to go with an off white called Behr Raffia Cream. It's on the 3 shorter walls in the living room and on the 4th wall located away from the kitchen, we used Behr Warm Muffin which looks like a darker golden color. That wall is very large, has a good sized window as well as our front door, which is painted white. It also extends up into the stairwell and it's all the same Warm Muffin color. It works amaziningly well with the Raffia Creme. We originally had a copper color on one wall in the living room but just couldn't adjust to it, it was too strong. My favorite part about having the colors that in the morning our whole downstairs glows in the sun. It's a great way to start the day. That kitchen in RMS is amazing, oh boy don't I wish I had the talent to mix and match colors like that!

Mrslee, I have both Pittsfield Buff and Baby Turtle in my house, although they're not right next to each other. However, I do think they would look great together. I used Pittsfield Buff in our master bedroom and in the master bath used Olive Branch, which is similar to but darker than Baby Turtle. The colors work very well together, I think. Our hall bath, which is my DD's bath, is in Baby Turtle, and she loves it Pittsfield Buff has become one of my favorite colors as it seems to me to be a very elegant, workable color that has a nice depth to it even though it's not very dark. I think you'll be very pleased with both the Pittsfield Buff and the Baby Turtle.