Thank you, prepmom. They do get a bit dirty but it's not really noticeable unless you're looking closely. Only 1 end chair gets regular use by DH, so I switch them out once in awhile. If he's particularly grungy from working outside I throw a sheet or towel over the chair if I'm around to catch him before he sits down! I take them to the dry cleaners every 6 months or so, but have them wet clean them because drycleaning didn't seem to help with some stains. I think I'm going to start cleaning them myself, starting with an Oxy soak in the bathtub, and maybe just take them in for pressing if needed. I hate ironing! Here's another view that shows the side chairs better. They have lines similar to one of your choices. Those slips wash easily in my washer and dryer and still look new after several years. All the fabric is ivory linen.

I think Beverly's photos show that whatever color you choose for the sofa ( and I do like the idea of a pale blue) it is the accessories that make the room. Look at all the above photos for design inspiration...pillows, baskets, rugs, throws, lighting and artwork show your personality and make the place your home.

Ah, gotcha. I misunderstood. I still do like those rooms and would consider them inspirational, at least partly. I am working around a few constraints for the room so maybe that accounts for the differences? - I need to find a chandelier that has a single round canopy, due to the way our ceiling is. In searching for a chandelier, it's been hard to find something that I think works with the room and has a single round canopy. - I really like the paned mirror in the first inspo room, but I'm looking to put one of those in the foyer. - I would like to find an affordable table that looks like the first inspo pic. I'm searching a local store's inventory for the table and chairs to find something we could potentially really get (and afford) instead of incorporating a picture of the *perfect* table that I don't know the make/price of. - I would also like to use parsons chairs for all of the seats, but I already have two and doubt I'd be able to match them easily to another 6. I think a contrasting chair type would be a better fit because of that. In the second insp pic I like how the room is generally neutral but has subtle color to it. I like the lantern light fixtures in that room but realize they won't work for my space. I also like the artwork in the room and I could use something like in my room in place of the circular mirrors. For my room, I knew I wanted to find a rug with a neutral base that had a few bits of accent color. The accent colors in the rug shown in the mock-up might be more vivid than I pictured in my mind, but I think they work. I also like the idea of an oriental rug that's not so traditional. I hope that helps explain?!? Maybe those rooms aren't exact inspirations. I'm still on the lookout for room designs to help guide me. My unusual dining room doesn't make it easy to compare online dining rooms to my own.

Again, there are so many blues and grays out there that will work with all of your colors. I suggest that you go to your favorite paint website (I love Behr and I go there all the time to choose colors for my house) and play with paint colors that you can visually paint in a room (you can choose the room). Once you find something you like, even if it's a couple of colors, I suggest buying paint samples. Once you get the samples, paint a decent sized section on a wall or two and see how it looks during the day and night. Give yourself a couple of days to decide if that is the shade you want. It's what I did when I moved in our house 3 years ago. It's how I found the shade of blue in my dining room and the shade of gray in my living room, which is in the below photo:This is Classic Silver from Behr and it is a true gray. It looks good with everything in my living room, including the wall hanging that is right of my Mom's painting. The wall hanging has a deep green border.