I plan to make all my seedlings (that I can handle) flower, then force them for the following year, and give away. I already promised the first one for Cindeea, for she sent me seeds, the second one for Maria, for her seeds... And then the rest will go to Project Angelfood. Hopefully they will see it as a nice gesture and not an unnecessary burden. :o)

You asked: I hate it. The bottom one looks like someone took a traditional, wicker sofa and wrapped it in leather. Those very formal, old fashioned arms, and bun feet, don't go with the eclectic, casual style of the upholstery. The shape of the red sofas is much more appropriate, but it would be better in all leather. Leather is great with kids so long as they don't have sharp things in their pockets and can be trusted not to poke pencils into it. It cleans up with water and saddle soap. But it does stick to bare skin, and can get hot. It's nature's vinyl. Which is why they combine it with fabric. Bad move. Either be fabric or be leather. The weight and texture are too different and they rarely come out looking great, especially after some living happens. The red bench is cool! Less imposing than a sofa table (console), but with a lot of the same function. And it's folky and funky. My Aunt had the two sofas flanking the fireplace in her living room. It's a great conversation grouping, but not so much for TV watching. For that, especially for the kids who probably look at the screen more, you want a straight on view. You can do a big square, though. An L of couch and settee or second couch or loveseat, and a couple of small easy chairs that are easy to get around on the opposite side. You have your red chairs. I'm not sure if they're too big to allow people to walk by easily if you close up the square, but even so, you can always pull them over for company, and keep them by the piano for family time with running kids. Re Larry, have your other family members sit tested him? I totally agree about the shape. It's very tired. But that LOVE thing is important. Your family room couch should feel Ahhh to sit on. I'm sure it'll still be there though. Maybe you can find a similarly comfy couch in a more classic shape that will give you more breadth of possibilities. Comfort comes first, but it can be done with a little more style than poor Larry. ;-)

Shee, Ha, I found out today, it will be at least another 6-8 weeks now before we get the sofa because it isn't expected to ship now till the mid part of August and then there's another couple of weeks for shipping & delivery time! I sure hope we have it before the holidays. LOL In regards to the chairs, I'm not willing to brush paint 4 chairs but we are seriously considering painting them with spray paint. (if DeeDee's idea doesn't work out) Deedee, You are brilliant! Thank you so much! I hadn't even thought of that but the owner of the store we got the cabinet from is a real character and he just loves to wheel and deal. He has a woman on staff who does all their painting and he once offered to refinish our dining room table for us. She uses a sprayer for all the base coats and seems to do a good job on other pieces I've seen. I don't see why he wouldn't be willing to work something out with me. Oh! Then they'd match the hutch! We're picking it up tomorrow morning, I'll ask him if he's in. Oh boy, I'm excited now, wouldn't that be great! Suero, That's a great price unfinished but buying them online means I'd have to paint them and I'm not really up for that. There were a couple of styles we were considering at our local naked furniture store. They had that same chair for something like 109.99 and they wanted 70 to stain it or 80.00 to paint it. Add tax and it was close to 200/chair, which was just more than our budget for the dining room would allow. Thank you for your help though, it was a good suggestion and I do appreciate it.

Rainidame, as you probably realized, you can use that system on both lower and upper cabinets. You can also use it on bookshelves as well. OK, now that you have things figgered out, lemme throw another idea at you. Have you ever considered making lower cabinets that are 32" deep rather than the standard 24"? What you do is build the lower carcasses 24" deep, but mount them 8" away from the wall. Then you make your drawers and pullout drawers 30" or 31" deep. You can still use 24" drawer slides, but mounted at the front of the pullout. Your countertops would be a standard 26" deep. The space between the back on the counter and the wall could be shelves, cubby holes, swingout units  all 8" deep. You could even store staples or appliances like a toaster, mixer, blender, etc. I realize you are somewhat short of stature, but, if you can reach the backsplash, you can reach items stored in this extended area. As and added benefit, your upper cabinets could extend depth of your upper cabinets by as much as 8". Of course, you have to have a kitchen big enough to accommodate the additional depth.