suzienj - I love your space. The textures are great, and that corner desk is so great! The black fabric is the one I am the most hesitant about, but I think I'll really like it. We have black furniture in other places in our house, so it will tie in well. I will post photos as I go. We have another meeting tomorrow with her, and honestly, given that it's a free service, I'm really happy. When we were building, I hired an expensive certified interior designer, and I wasn't pleased at all with her work (ended up "firing" her and making all the choices myself - she said she hated the distressed look that I love, but that's another long story). So, I guess the price tag isn't always an indicator of quality. Thanks, Jan

I tried to quickly scan through. I don't know if someone made this suggestion yet. Can you put doors on your cabinets? We had open shelves on either side of our fireplace. I had my husband make doors for them. He made frames and covered the inside of the frame with cane. (we had to since they hold our tv components and I was afraid that they would melt down if no air got to them.) But, you can get tons of different sized cabinet doors at the restore or something similar. With the ones my husband made, I just painted them and put them up with regular old hinges. They look pretty good. I was going with a more natural/coastal theme. So, they work well in here. Oh! I was thinking. If you have odd sizes (like we do) you could just have lowes cut you new doors out of that mdf and paint them. Just don't get really super thick mdf. It paints like a dream with a roller and you could get the odd sized cabs covered. Melamine doors if you don't want to paint. But... you don't have to do all of your shelves. Maybe just the bottom half. It will break up some of the visual clutter. And, you can hide actual clutter (like we do!) which is really the main thing. :) Kim

I have antlers over artwork in our back hallway - my back to the garage entrance. As long as your ceiling it tall enough, go for it. If your not sure, have DH hold it up for you first. Another no to the plates. I also have a small handmade vintage deer with metal antlers over two etchings downstairs.

Photos of Hubby and I, children and grandchildren are all in similar black frames. I have 3 photos inherited from my grandmother, my mom and aunts that are in blond frames from the 1950s and 1960s. I'm hesitant to lose the vintage quality. They were scattered but I could hang them as a grouping. I have a couple other old photos I'd like to add so our grandchildren can see them without having to haul out and wade through 3 different albums.