Blonde, I think you and I must be furniture sisters LOL I can't imagine building a house, how wonderful! That's a lot of work so my hat is off to both of you! We bought our home as a foreclosure in need of some loving and loving is what it's gotten. :c) With the exception of our master bath remodel, we've done all the work ourselves; including the installation of our floors. After all we've put into it I wish I could say it's our forever house, but I don't really think so. That's another story though. LOL Thanks so much for your feedback on the table/chairs/server. I was wondering if it worked with the cabinets and flooring, so your opinion is really appreciated. I'm pretty happy with it. Yes, the furniture saga continues but I'm sure it will work out, things always do, don't they? And yes, 3rd time is the charm. Now I have to find curtain fabric for that big window next to the new table. Always projects. LOL Don't feel too bad about the furniture options in your area, we're in a similar boat it just takes some tenacity to stick with it until you find what you want. We live in Michigan about an hour or so north of Detroit. Furniture options here are barren at best. As a matter of fact, we had to drive over 50 miles away just to see the couch we got. I love to research though and would be happy to help you to find out what other options are available in your area. Sorry you're having problems with the upload. Tinypic.com allows you to upload pics to for the HTML code without an account. Just go to tinypic.com, upload the pic, change "RESIZE" to Message Board (640x480), hit upload now, it will make you type some cryptic words to keep spammers out, then it will upload the photo. Copy the HTML code and place it in the Message window of your Forum message. Hit preview and your photos will be there. :c) 50.00 is cheap delivery considering fuel prices. The store we bought the table at has now charged us 79.00 x2 plus that freaking restock fee for the sofa's which was 350.00. That's over 500.00 in fees. Ouch. I could have bought tv stand with that! I've never paid a restocking fee before in my life and can promise you I never will again. I think it's ridiculous. As far as black goes, the only experience I've had with black is that I recently painted the cabinet in our spare bathroom black and love it. It is sort of a dust magnet though. I love both black and white painted furniture and don't think you can go wrong with either. My last kitchen table was white and I had for 20 years; it showed dirt that I don't think the black would show, however black would show any paint chipping that I don't believe the white would show as badly. Finger prints are another animal however and I can't say, you may want to post a thread and see what kind of response you get. One thing I do wonder about is if the black would have a stronger presence in a room as opposed to the white, I know it does in our bathroom. Do you know what I mean? How big is your space? Would the black swallow it up? Is this what your other table looked like? I love those chairs. They carry them at Pottery Barn Outlet which luckily is 50 miles north of us, they are very french country. Why is everything 50 miles away? LOL Here is a link that might be useful: link to table & chairs in photo

I can't help with brands, because we bought our leather couch at a local place, but we got it because of the dogs. It has been great in that dog hair doesn't stick to it and it can be wiped clean for the most part. We chose a beige leather, because scratches seemed to show up easier on dark leathers. Also, the leather is matte and "textured" if you can call it that, instead of a smooth, shiny surface. For this reason I would outright reject your 3rd link as I think that type and colour of leather will show wear really fast. One thing we did when shopping was scratch the leather as hard as we could with our nails, and see what the results were. From your 5th link I liked the Jura - it's similar to what we got and I think it would wear well. One question - do your dogs dig or nest on the couch? You might want to discourage that and put a throw on there just in case. I also don't let the dogs bring chewy (i.e. drooly) or scratchy toys up on the couch, stuffies only. I couldn't get the first two links to load for some reason...

I totally forgot!! When we were finished with the build, our builder hired a professional photographer and I posted them on here. I just had to go back and find them. The fireplace is to the right. You can see our back door, windows to the backyard, kitchen, broom/vacuum cabinet, and dry bar. Front door, reading nook, and dry bar. Angle from close to our back door. Hopefully this will give people a better idea of our space.

This off topic, but I thought I’d mention it. I have a vintage caramel leather chair from pottery barn that I had near a window. It was a rich creamy caramel colour and the change was so gradual I didn’t notice it until several months later. The light really does a number on leather and areas where the light/sun hit the chair has lightened the leather a lot. Those parts are more a grayish caramel and I wish I’d noticed it sooner. I’ve moved the chair away from the windows but the damage is done. Just a heads up since you said you wanted to put your couch in front of the window.