Your table sounds fabulous! That's a tough decision. How wide are the leaves? Will there really be seating for an extra person in each corner? If the leaves can provide around 15 inches of knee room, I would seat the smaller family members on the corners and go for it with the end leaves. After all, the beauty and function of the table for every day use should probably take precedent over occassional larger gatherings. With a big group, people don't mind working around a table leg for just an hour or so. Enjoy your new table!

Lynn, you're right - you can barely see the color of the chair by the window in these pictures! It's funny - in a way that's kind of accurate. The fabric sample was a very pretty light green, but on a large area (esp. by the window) the color kind of washed out. One of the things I like about the pictures over the media console is that they draw the color out and make the chair seem greener, somehow. Thanks, Loribee - isn't the ottoman cute? ;-) I got it at a great price at Overstock. I use it by the door to throw my bag on when I come in, but I'm actually thinking of getting another one (maybe a round one) to put in the living room... Anyway, posting another picture of the chair that I hope shows the color better. That's a piece of the drapery laid over the chair. Also posting a mockup I did that tries to show the parrot green dining chair with the rest of the stuff. Green chair looking a little more green? Mockup with picture, table & parrot green dining chair

Oh, heck no, and I don't think that they need to be similar in tone, either... contrast is good, lest you get the "tried to match and missed" look, which is very much not good. That goes double if you're furnishing with antiques/vintage items. I have a pretty small living room (approx 12x16 if we're being optimistic!) and not one thing matches anything else. The coffee table is nutmeg-stained maple, rectangular with porringer corners and big drawers, sort of country-Victorian-inspired. One side table is a 30" round tea table in cherry-stained quartersawn oak in typical reproduction Mission style. Another is a small antique Arts & Crafts period 16" round tabouret table, quartersawn oak in a chocolatey brown finish (fumed oak). The last is a little bitty 12" square blonde ashwood table with slightly curvy legs, rather more modern than the other items although I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a certain style of mahogany or walnut Victorian bookstand end table to come along in-budget (aka cheap LOL). I have a large backless upholstered bench that's too modern in style for this old house and is on my list of things to sell - once I do I plan to replace it with a wing chair and I think the small copper-topped fumed-oak trestle coffee table would fit underneath the window next to where the chair would go. What makes everything play nicely together is that it's all from (or reproduced from) the same time period, the turn of the 19th-20th century.

Are you going to paint the grandfather clock too? Don't be so quick to create a monotone room. I would darken the coffee table top with a gel stain so it works with the darker end tables and clock. HERE is how one person did it. I might also darken the dining chairs. I'm confused as to how the end tables have the perfect width, but you want them to look larger! Perhaps you are overthinking the design. It looks balanced to me. Live with it for a while.