I am thinking you need to go the opposite of neutral. Dark colors do not necessarily make a space look small. Also if you pick a color that is neutral it can bring out the color you don't want more, but if you pick a color that has that blue/pink undertone in it , it will bring out another tone. I think I would go a gray, maybe a light gray like 'gray owl' by benjamin moore which has a bit of a green undertone to it.

I really want to thank you all for your help and suggestions - you really motivated me and I'm putting your thoughts to good use! This afternoon I started painting and moving a few things into her room. I choose Meadowbrook by Ace for the walls and immediately fell in love. So much so that I called DH at work to tell him. I snapped a few pics for you to see even though the walls were still wet in some places. While painting I decided that the accent color would definitely be soft pinks and red raspberry shades. Meadowbrook wall paint. I think that the wall color looks wonderful w/ the maple wood furniture and love how it plays w/ the crisp white trim. Meadowbrook is 2 shades darker than Woodlawn (which is my MBR wall color) and is the closest match (w/o colormatching) to F&B's Pale Powder. I am definitley going to do the white IKEA curtains doubled up as someone suggested in their post! I'm going to try matchstick blinds layered underneath to pick up the wood tones in the furniture. Like I said - this room gets blinding light. Do you think that pink and berry accents will work w/ this wall color? After reading some of the thoughts about kids possibly being creeped out by staring owl eyes I went back and looked at the James Brown art and came up w/ some of these prints. Any catch your fancy for the room?: Here is a close up of the bedskirt and the pillows have a small ruffle of the same check for a border.: I found a small old wooden birdcage in the basement that I thought I could spraypaint white or berry and put butterflies and birds in and hang in a corner. Lame? I still really like the 'foresty' idea and thought I could run w/ it in an 'Enchanted Forest' girlie way (not a Harry Potter way). I can get her a white stuffed owl for her bed! Crazy thought - tell me if I'm taking it too far - What about painting the bureau a soft pink or raspberry color? Too much? Oh - and my mom called today to say that she found the sweetest antique childs rocker for $15 that she bought for her!

You know, when we bought the dining room set there were these *perfect* mission style lamps as you describe on display sitting on the buffett and I was going to purchase them and my husband said "no no no we can get those later". Well, I've had a hard time trying to find them and the furniture store no longer carries them...grrr! But I digress... Home Depot closes in less than two hours and with painters coming tomorrow, I have no choice but to take a chance and go with the Peanut Butter. It is probablly my safest bet. I have not even attempted to decorate this dining room yet (other than purchasing furniture), so I really intend on bringing in splashes of color, both in artwork, pottery, and textiles. Perhaps a punch of orange on a table runner or something like that. Plus I haven't even gotten an oriental for the dining room yet (still recovering from the cost of the orientals in the LR and hallways) so I'm confident I can get some color in there. Also I need to purchase a new chandelier so I'll have another opportunity there ---- I hope! Thank you all for your help! Wish me luck!!

Yes, a prep sink there fixes the prep counter issues we were discussing, assuming all the measurements work out (prep sink as drawn looks quite small -- I assume it'd be bigger in real life). A 60w x 40d prep counter with easy water access is ideal, as far as I'm concerned. I do really encourage you to mock things up, though. Tape off a 60w x 40d area on a table and try prepping there. See if you want more or less room in either direction. That's how I decided for myself that 6' was too wide for me, but there are plenty of people who would love such a wide counter. Carrie B (a gardenwebber who just remodeled her kitchen) tested 30" deep counters when she was planning and found them to be uncomfortably deep for her and required too much stretching. I forget how tall she is, but she is on the short end, so that is why deep counters were uncomfortable for her (difficult for her to reach the full depth). I'm 5'9", and I love extra depth in my prep counter and have no trouble reaching anything. You will want to use the counter on both sides of the sink, so the counter in front of the seat closest to the prep sink will likely always be in use while cooking and often wet. You can put a seat there, but I think it will not be a popular seat. Trash should go under the prep counter/prep sink somewhere. You generate almost all your trash while prepping, not while doing dishes at the clean-up sink. The walkway between the prep counter and cooktop looks very narrow. Like, 30" wide, which would be ridiculously uncomfortable. How wide is it actually meant to be in your approximation? The island is huge and very deep in places and almost square-shaped. Slabs come in rectangles usually, so you are probably setting yourself up for a gnarly seam if you get stone/quartz. What counter material did you have in mind? Very deep counters can be hard to clean because you can't reach all the way across or even to the middle. Try making a to-scale island top out of cardboard in this shape, put it on table and see how you feel about wiping that counter down.