Katherine, Share some pics of your existing cabs and BR finishes and your choices- we love voting! I spent months (cuz it took us over a year to do our Basement BR) picking hardware to match. I did get all shiny chrome and love how it all relates. But my existing upstairs cabinet hardware doesn't match the fixtures at all, and I never gave it a second's thought when we bought the house, and I would hazard a guess that no one has ever even noticed. Think of the cabinets as furniture- I bet you have rooms in your house where the furniture hardware does not all match!

Sorry, ORB = oil-rubbed bronze! :) Our backdoor hardware is oil-rubbed bronze, which I hated at the start of our remodel, but which actually looks more at home now that it's done--it plays off of the black fixtures, I think. (We also replaced the door with a stained rather than painted door, which helped a lot too--so rather than "random finishes," we have the nickel on the cabinets, the ORB on the stained door, the brass on the painted doors/windows, and the black on the lights and accents (stove grates are black here too). Plus I totally forgot about the stainless hood, so yeah, we are not sticklers for matching finishes! (We do also have an older house, though, which I think gives us a little more freedom for finishes to vary than a newer house where everything was matchy-matchy to start with--even our windows and doors with original hardware vary in that some of the hardware and hinges have been painted over and are now "white" and some of the hardware is still brass.) Our kitchen is not open to any room except our breakfast nook, so we did match the fixture finishes there. But I don't think we needed to do that, necessarily. I would wait on your dining room fixture till the kitchen is done and see how you feel about matching versus not at that point.

I did a standard crescent (I think) white (there are about 6 different whites). I just matched the paper and I left 1/2" all around the print showing, plus enough at the bottom for the signature and seal. The mats on all of them, no matter the size is 3", so about 2 1/2 or so shows. It's a single mat, no spacers. I don't know if you can tell, but the matting isn't a perfect match with all of the papers, but it's very close to all of them. DH has collected a few more, but we haven't had them all framed, because it's a bit dear, I'll tell you what. We'll get to them, eventually. He's been trying to find all the names for them (from other Ebay listers). Did you see the original oil that just went on Ebay for $2,000+? It was gorgeous. DH says he got some of ours from finestartprints, as well.

I didn't get to mess with the picture today like I wanted but hopefully tomorrow. I honestly really don't love the picture anymore either. Its one of those "until I find something I love to take it's place." I had planned to do a makeover ever since I bought it but didn't get around to it. Natal - Good point. I'll start with that first. Lazygardens - Another good point about flipping the mat. I actually think the colors in the picture and frame clash with the mat (greens). Rock - I didn't even think about Rub N Buff. I currently only have the gold and patina but have been wanting to get the copper one for a long time. Dlm - I didn't even think about craft paints. I do have a quart of SW Antique White I figured I'd also take a look at. It's good to know other people do paint mats. Cheap fix. :) Ratherbesewing - It looks like this was professionaly framed. How was your picture/frame held together? I have another double mat framed picture I took apart once. The picture fell down and I just used tape to move it back up. It was so long ago I don't remember how it was together. I was crossing my fingers I could figure out the one above. I'll let you know how it goes.