Thanks for the link My3Dogs! Looks like a great site and I will have to figure out what chairs I want to re-upholster so I can check their fabrics. I was looking for a specific Waverly fabric for my kitchen valances but they did not carry it there. I did find it though at FabricGuru.com for $6.95/yd plus they only charge $4.99 for shipping no matter how much you order. Its nice to know there are places to buy fabrics at a reasonable cost. I'm thinking about pulling out my 37 year old sewing machine and trying my hand at the valances. I bought enough fabric though that I can always turn it over to a professional if I really mess up! The fabric I ordered is Waverly's Rutherford Hill Merlot. I think it will pull together my colors in my kitchen and keep with the "Tuscan" look I am going for. Here is a link to my kitchen. I have saffron gold walls with Currant Jam (Burgundy) accents around the windows, butler pantry and in the powder room, plus my kitchen chairs have sage green seats and my adjoining sunroom is painted in light greens. Here is a link that might be useful: My Kitchen

Thanks for the vote of confidence, holly-kay. mtn - I'm going to inquire about the next sale at Calico to see how much I might be able to save on the fabric, should I go with that one. voila - I like your suggestions and I agree with you, now that I take a closer look at the fabric, that it does read more "plaid". I have a much darker, much busier plaid in the LR right now that I would love to change, so I must be very careful to not add in another plaid that I will want to change too soon. ***** I think I should be considering possible fabrics for a chair or chairs in the LR along with fabric for the dining room, so it all works together. Yikes, what have I started??

I Googled them and found the original instructions from Magnaverde - "Forget all that nonsense about teensy bottles of expensive paint medium from the crafts store. You don't need anything more than regular latex semi-gloss paint--and a lot of guts. I found a beautiful Baker Chippendale camelback sofa, with cool curved arms and a fat down cushion, but it was covereed in a hideous glazed chintz in the ugliest colors I ever saw. I found some great yellow wool damask to reupholster with, but it would have cost me $3OOO just for the fabric and trim, so I painted my sofa instead. Everyone freaked out when I told then the plan, but it worked. I was planning on painting my living room dark green, so I decided to go with red leather. First, I painted the whole thing with bubblegum pink semigloss latex paint, using the widest foam brush I could find, and brushing it on in long strokes front-to-back and up + down. Think of that as the primer coat. I let it dry 2 days, and sanded it super lightly with fine-grade sandpaper to get rid of the burrs--and there were a lot of them. When I couldn't feel any more sharp things, another coat of paint, spread thin. Dried and sanded again. Then spread--with my hands--a thin coat of raspberry red semi-gloss paint I had deadened a little with brown to make it a little less vivid. Because it was a deep color, there wasn't much white filler in the paint, so it was almost like a glaze or stain, instead of paint, which is just what I wanted anyway. I just smoothed it on, like suntan oil, and worked it into the pink paint. I let it build a little thicker at the back, on the inside of the arms and at the back edge of the loose cushion, so that the paler, thinner red took on an air of wear at the high points. I let it dry 2 days, then CAREFULLY sanded the few new sharp things, and touched up those spots with my fingers. I let it dry 2 days, then waxed the whole thing with regular paste wax. After it was dry, I polished with a soft cloth, then dusted with talcum, and vacuumed it all off. It was a little stiff the first few days, but now it not only looks like red leather, it feels like it. This worked great on my ugly glazed chintz, and probably would work on any smooth fabric, except that some may have more burrs and therefore require more sanding, but I wouldn't try it on anything with a heavy texture. And no, the paint doesn't peel off. And no, it's not stiff, either. Think about it--it's latex paint, and essentially, that's what's in those little bottles of fabric medium."

Finz - ha! You're right - HECK NO! Got a good chuckle out of that, though. Thanks, rucnmom, for your opinion. I think you're probably right. We'd more than likely prefer armed chairs. Thanks, terriks, those are really cute dining or occasional chairs. What we really want to do is lounge-type lounge seating - chairs we can hang out on and drink our coffee and read. The chairs we are looking for won't be used at the table. If we need to set up a table for dining when we entertain, we'll move the more comfortable seating into the LR and corners of the DR. Appreciate the thoughts!