We really need to see a photo of the space(s). But, I've looked at your links and my first thoughts are STOP! You are not heading in the right direction. Show us the items you really, really want to keep and the room(s) you want to put them in for proper design help.

I keep saying, follow your instincts and Darzy, my instincts go with you. He loves this table (especiall now that we see it on sale for up to $8,000) but the light burl olive wood just conflicts with my idea of white pillars as supports, a french country kitchen using my 1800s armoire as a pantry, butcher block counters, the great cloud sofa WITH Aunt Zeldah's chair, The mid century modern just doesn't fit with the rustic pieces I have. I really need an interior designer. Thanks.

I would keep the table but not cater to it's decorating needs. Does that make sense? So no, not everything has to go because of one table. Get your transitional furniture for the room but lean towards slightly simpler lines. The table can take slight curves in the buffet, for example, as long as they are repeated somewhere else, in say the chairs.

IF, and only IF you wanted to, Aunt Zelda's chair could be recovered in a fabric that might match the table, but if the chair is going in a separate room don't worry about it. If you're doing drapes in the dining room have them be simple and perhaps carry the colour into the fabric for the chair if you want to.

Don't do black lacquer for this table.

ETA - It is a stunning table, a statement piece. Let it speak for itself.

Just because the Milo Baughman piece is valuable doesn't mean you have to keep it. Do you like it? Is your fiance attached to it? Or is it an equity issue, where he's moving into your house so it's only fair to keep some of his stuff?

I do think you need to take a big step back and a very deep breath. Don't rush into any purchases. An interior designer would be a good investment if you can afford one. We can help here if you provide pics of the space and all the space your are trying to juggle, and a floor plan with dimensions.

Pictures of your rooms and furnishings would really help.

Is there another room where you could put the MB table? In the living room as a console table or in an office as a desk, perhaps? Alternately, could you use your parquet inlaid French table in another room? I think you could easily have it be the only modern/MCM element in the house.

And yes, agreeing with cawaps, just because it's a !!Milo Baughman!! doesn't mean you have to keep it. What were your plans for the table before you learned about it?

Anglo, you're what my mother used to call a pip : ) .

I would not rush, so expensive mistakes are not made. Have fun blending households - there is no time clock!

I would not do black lacquered chairs, or start purchasing MCM pieces in order for the table to "fit." As stated above, I would not cater to the DR table. It is perfectly fine to mix a few modern pieces with antiques.

Go on Instagram and Pinterest. Numerous IDs mix antiques and modern. J Randall Powers comes to mind, since I just read his Q&A article in Southern Home magazine. He doesn't have much on Instagram.

I wouldn't design your new open space around that table or purchase additional pieces that go with it. Its a big chunky table that might be nice in a conference room, but It doesn't have the MCM appeal that many are seeking these days for their homes. BTW - 1st Dibs' prices are marked up beyond belief. Keep the things you love and get rid of what you don't.

I agree with everyone and thank you for your input. Allison, I have made many pins on pinterest incorporating modern and antiques and I can visualize them all. I agree with everyone and woke up this morning thinking, "Why am I allowing a table to dictate my style?" Anglophilla, hahaha I agree especially when he is moving into what was 'my' house. He does have an attachment to the table and is being great about delving into and learning about different styles and actually NOT watching football once and a while and looking into buffets and credenzas lol. He is beginning to understand even though he is imagination challenged. Blfenton thank you so much for your comment because this morning I realized I was a over thinking the MB thing and perhaps the table can just......be. Funny thing is that his chairs, althoug he had them black lacquered are rounded and a smaller scale. Beckysharp (love that name after my favorite novel) I too agree with cawaps that just because it is an MB does not mean it is a keeper. I think our first target is designing the kitchen and bathroom and concentrate on those places which will come first. The Japanese say the home decorates around you. Thank you all for grounding me and releasing me from my panic. His home has not sold yet and neither has the table. lol

My Milo Baughman pieces were perfectly at home in an 1840s room with double fireplaces and plaster ornaments on the ceiling and furniture from 1840 to 1970.

Can your post pictures of that palimpsest? Hard to imagine.

I agree with the above responses -- Please don't buy other pieces until you try to fit it with what you have.

I've mixed a 100 yo French oak dining table with modern outdoor chairs. While it's not to everyone's tastes, it works for me. There's very little in my house that matches. It's a mix-match! I think you may be surprised by what you can do by mixing pieces from different eras.

Look at this modern table from Restoration Hardware that has a similar weight as your modern table. They used upholstered chairs that would easily work with French country.

If you have wingback dining chairs, they don't have to be modern. It's the mixing of the forms, weight and scale of the pieces. You could put something of this scale only at the end, and lighter weight (like above) as side chairs.

Thank you all so much for your suggestions. Somehow my fiance's attachment to the table threw me off. I have always been eclectic with an 1800s armoire, a pine armoire, Aunt Zelda's Victorian (?) hand carved chair when I had to downsize to a much smaller home I went from French Country to as dyhgarden put it "mix match." I have never liked matchy matchy. Thank you for posting these great pictures dyhgarden. I simply love the red chairs in the third picture and the black and white wing back. The room is stunning and shows so many styles and genres. You are so right about the configuration of the RH dining table. The olive burl wood of the table is so bright....I guess it throws me off...but I am getting the idea. I will settle down and concentrate on what is coming up first and foremost working with a designer here in Michigan and take my houzz ideas for the kitchen and bathroom which in reality will come before decorating and concentrate on that first. It is so funny my guy just said in humor (knowing he HATES red, why I don't know lol), "Look, I am finally okay with your red blown glass chandelier, I will go with those red chairs, and I am buying you a red convertible, will you please let me watch the football game now?" He added a few explitives in jest but I don't have to say any more. I am keeping my mouth shut for now. hahahah

Could it be used as a desk, if either of you need one, and put in a 'secondary room' such as a home office? The height at 29.5" is the same as the upper pull out shelf in my PC armoire. If you have a room where it could be used as such, your fiance may be able to bring some more of his pieces into that room.

I will post the layout as soon as I can. This 50s bungalow has no rooms really. We are taking out walls to give the 1900 square foot home a more open feel and adding 15 feet in the back to give us a family room, longer kitchen and master bedroom/bathroom (an extra five food addition). I love your moniker we have 3 dogs as well lol. Two small poodle mixes and an inflatable puppy who is a surprising 50 pounds at 6 months...we may have to move with this 'puppy'. I call him (not his real name) a "galump" because he knocks into everything. What was I thinking? lol

How about red velvet chairs?

Or maybe reverse the antique table, mod chairs think and do mod table, antique chairs?

robo(z6a)

Who are you? Where are you?

I absolutely LOVE these ideas. Everything is so eclectic but has the colors I long for. I am so tired of green and going from French Country to transitional. I especially love the idea of the red chairs being used at the end of the table.

Maybe time for a bold high style look?

I’m just a poster from Canada, definitely the farthest thing from a pro! :D

Red velvet chairs would tie in nicely with the red Murano glass chandelier...

Interior Design is a very personal subject. I can understand you are feeling lost and confused but please be careful. First of all you can't change your whole design esthetic because of one table unless you want to. The first step is to take photos of all the things you want to keep and make sure this is what you want. You don't want to make expensive mistakes that cannot be undone. The next step is to do a google search for mid-century design you like. You are not creating sets from Mad Men (unless this is what you want). I recommend looking for a designer (who has GOOD taste) in your area that can help you. Please be careful, don't forget the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The people here want to help you but many haven't the professional expertise to help you. Good luck on your home, hope it turns out to be everything you want and more!

"Please be careful, don't forget the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The people here want to help you but many haven't the professional expertise to help you."

Heavens to Betsy. A badly decorated house can often "look like hell", but the road to Hell, and possibly Hell itself, seems to be overstating the risks wildly.

It might help to understand that GardenWeb is a longstanding public forum and community, established long before it was acquired and monetized by Houzz and before that by iVillage.

And while many GardenWeb members don't have professional expertise, a good many are skilled, talented amateurs; and there are a number of professionals who offer invaluable advice and don't use the forums to sell their services or spam members. This is especially true in the home decorating, kitchen, and home building forums. Members' dedication to helping others and indispensable advice over the years is an obvious counterpoint to those who would denigrate the community. Especially when it is layered on top of the same advice -- to calm down and proceed slowly -- that members, with and without professional advice, have already given earlier in the thread.

The good advice I've received and bookmarked over more than nine years, whether from non-professionals or professionals, I know has come from members who aren't expecting any sort of remuneration whatsoever and don't get any commission, percentage, or bonus from what I choose. This is why over the year I've avoided designers (and "designers") working for stores, because they have skin in the game. Most of them tend to be more interested in selling their product -- and sometimes the product, in the case of the independent designer, is the designer him- or herself (which is why I always advise looking at portfolios and getting references first, rather than acquiescing to the me! me! me! school of selection) -- than in helping the client solve a design situation.

I have to admit in all the reading I've done on interior design over the years, I've never come across the aphorism, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". I far prefer the advice of interior designer Libby Cameron (formerly of Parish-Hadley), "I still have pieces that I found and loved when I first saw them thirty years ago... . What you buy should be bought on instinct, because you’re drawn to it. Never buy a piece just because you need something in that spot; that is how a house loses its soul."

Grey and Walter Ltd.,

Are you suggesting I post pieces I really like right here?

beckysharp, (still my favorite name) I understand what you are saying. I still love these timeless pieces I have because they were not designed really but were functional in a day in which solid wood was hand hewn and actual metal smiths forged the amazing locks and hinges. I still adore my hand made rugs.

Grey and Walter

Thank you for your input. I agree with you absolutely. I have been living with over scale in my small 50s 1/2 story for too long. Now that I am putting in an addition, for the first time, I do not have guidance. In my area (everyone in my upscale area has either torn down houses like mine or put on additions) and the designers I trust are busier than the time frame I have. As I speak they are framing the addition and want a kitchen and master bathroom plan when I do not have a designer to guide me.

I completely understand your tongue in cheek comment about the "Road to Hell." One without guidance can make costly mistakes. I am taking down all of the walls so the concept has to flow. Then I decided that if I delineated spaces with partial walls, I would have more room for my art.

I wasn't thrilled with my fiance's table at first because he has it in a poorly decorated home, period. He picked pieces because the black frame of a round glass piece matched an art fair acquisition. He collected Lladro, swarovski, and everything was in plastic "showcases" nailed here and there on walls with no rhyme or reason. I am not pointing fingers, but his wife just didn't care about such thing.

The table was lost among so many design styles I couldn't see it anywhere, least of all among my rustic, French country pieces. Yet, he seems attached to it. I thought that if I put a partial wall deliniating the new family room from the the dining room, I could use the credenza which goes with the table and keep the red blown murino glass chandelier and that would be the end of the mid century modern.

On the other side of the "wall" I could put my rustic many drawers piece and his "can't live without" television over it. I could use the dark wood "coffee" table which was actually used in the turn of the century for bread. It is so cool. I left wall space between two windows for my two large multi colored abstract. This way one would not see the table and credenza, which, to me, would fight with my transitional eclectic pieces that somehow go together.

I am incorporating at least one of my 1800s armoires in the kitchen and using it as a pantry. I found someone who can reconfigure it. I don't mind because it isn't a museum piece and was already reconfigured to house a LARGE television in my first house when the televisions were giant.

I like the idea of using the two tall red velvet chairs with arms on either side of the table.

I do love my antique French country dining room table which is parquet inlay doesn't have leaves but pulls out from both side to accommodate more people. It has curved legs and is nothing like the mid century lines of the table and credenza.

Well, I am going to post pictures of my favorite things here when I figure how to upload things.

Ellie

I cannot tell you how much I miss working with my interior designer. Unfortunately, he had a stroke. I would cut out ideas and he could see I leaned toward mixing old and new, French Country, real wood, and pieces which individually were unique but nothing was over done. It just melded and never looked as though it was 'decorated." Unfortunately he had a stroke and until now I just worked with the pieces I had.