Morning, Parma! Yeah, your table isn't frou frou in the least.. but it is gorgeous and really has a presence. It is totally jeans and pearls.. really really NICE jeans and pearls. I want to see the edge detail in all sorts of lighting. I was thinking that I bet it looks great in low light/candlelight.. almost like a romantic spanish table. You are hitting all the romance languages/countries! (I see what you have on your mind! haha) I could totally make the table work but I am not up for buying new chairs right now (shopping for or paying for)... plus in my mind it is YOUR table. :) Price-wise it is in the same ballpark with others that have caught my eye... but it far exceeds the quality and drama of the others. I am all over the place with my likes-- imagine that! LOL I want something that looks "fresh" and "interesting" and that has taken me in all sorts of directions. I'll post pictures and where I am thinking in a few weeks. It was a project I had planned for next year but I keep feeling the pull now. I AM still planning on the HW buffet! I firmed up my furniture selections last night-- in fact, I have written a long post with what I have selected and where I am still undecided but.. I was embarrassed to post it as I've dragged this out so long LOL. I had a few concerns about the buffet-- first the height, but my designer chick set up a section on their showroom floor for me. We put a painting over a chest the same height and set up a chair at my viewing distance. I think it is fine-- my other concerns are the fact that the drawers are velvet lined for silverware and just the cost. Will it look too out of place to have an expensive dining piece for the tv? I mean, I know I like the style and look of it for the LR but will it look too frivolous or silly to have my electronics on a NICE piece? I am going with "no" for the moment haha (but still scouring craigs list and ebay). I am in the process of selecting a finish for it. Wow, HW has SO many finishes and some of them are just so cool. I narrowed the 100+ options down to like 10 or 12 (all premium, of course, darn it). I will go in next time with a paint sample since many of the finishes are in the ivory, silver, green, blue range. The black is still in the running too-- but I am definitely leaning towards a more distressed and unusual finish.

Sometimes the biggest risk in decorating is to go the safe, neutral, 'in-style', paint-color-of-the-year route. Now, there's nothing wrong in painting your living room the same beige as the model home you fell in love with when you bought your house. There's no harm in getting a microfiber couch that will stand up to the 4 kids and clean up well for company. There's no foul (yes, you know how I want to spell it...) in buying a beautiful painted rooster for your kitchen island because it ties in all the colors of the adjoining great room and you also have a set of chicken plates somewhere. There's not even a good reason to pull down your own mullioned, (as the case may or may not be!) ginormous mirror that just fills up that zooming wall in the entry and gives you that satisfied feeling that you found just the right piece for Your house, and looks very real since it's up way too high for your own visitors to suspect that it's anything but the real deal. Why? Because a risk for you may be entirely different than a risk for me. Painting a nerf football and using it as art would not be a risk for me. It would be an act of insanity. I can imagine visitors to the house of MV coming innocently close to the giclee-nerfe' and only thinking... "How cool is that sculpture?"--but in my own far more pedestrian/subdivision/cookie-cutter house setting saying... "What the hey?? What were you smoking when you painted a sponge football, Red?" And BTW, have you seen the football in question? Or the plastered table? Bet you could scroll through the photos fast in the link below and not spot it immediately. I've seen it before in the magazine and had a hard time picking out the makeshift art from the artist-painted. Fabulous. No, taking a decorating risk is not the sensible thing to do for everyone. And my risk might make you snicker. Your risk might make me shudder. Beauty is most assuredly in the eye of the beholder. And sometimes beauty is found more plentifully in areas where the shopping is more limited. I know for sure that my house in a small town in New Mexico, at the edge of the desert, next to a Walmart, had more interesting, 'found' items, than any place since. I had few options for furniture or accessories. Now, with stores surrounding me, and a truck to haul things with, I find myself bringing home a lot more cheese than I ever thought possible. Thankfully, most of mine comes with a return receipt and rarely makes it past the first few hours in my house. And interestingly enough, the things I find in the corner of a barn at an estate sale out in the country, are usually not risky buys at all. I know that old piece of rusted iron will work somewhere. The aging needlepoint with spider webs on the edge will make a great pillow. The chipped cobalt and white clay vase will be wonderful on the dresser. No risks and no regrets. It's the stuff I get the register receipts for that always prove to be the the question marks. Right now, I'm working on my own art project. I'm applying plaster and a coat of pink latex paint to a bottle of Nyquil. Then, when it's dry and perfect, I'm going to send it to a good home in Chicago. Watch for it next year in Expensive Home Magazine. Red Here is a link that might be useful: from Apartment Therapy

Ok, I recognize I have worn out my welcome with this one 😎 1. I am going to keep the armless side chairs from my mother and try to get the ketchup stain off one of the chairs. 2. I am going to keep the the fully upholstered chairs on either side of the breakfront, the armchairs at head and foot of the table and my mother’s chairs in the middle position on each side. 3. If I can’t get the mother’s chairs clean i will upholster them in matching green damask. 4. If the all green scheme needs relief I will reupholster the chairs on either side of the china cabinet either in the curtain fabric or some as yet unfound fabulous fabric. Thank you all for your participation in the latest episode of Fix My Dining Room!

Cow art doesn’t do it for me… DH grew up on a cattle farm and when we met in college he had one thing on his wall—a poster of an enormous Angus bull. It was an advertisement for Angus beef. I could see right away that I had my work cut out for me 😎