Happy Monday! Thank you SO MUCH for all the thoughtful comments and pics!! We ordered a cat condo; it will be placed on the wall where the money tree was located. The tree has already been moved to the left of the fireplace. It does well in our family room as it likes indirect sun. Also, we trimmed our cat's claws and she didn't mind it a bit! I was more nervous than she was haha!! Thank you, ingrid and shari, for that recommendation. The right words at the right time can make all the difference :-) Anglo, I do like seagrass rugs and maybe now we can consider looped rugs after all. Beverly - your suggested layout would def be my preference, and we did try to make it work. But the z-chairs - which we really like and I couldn't find any swivel chairs that I liked as much - kept getting moved around for better tv viewing. And since the tv over the fireplace was most functional for us, we had to find a furniture arrangement to accommodate it. The interrelationship of all these factors has me spinning in circles! As I find items that are appropriately sized, I would greatly appreciate your assistance in making them all work together. Susan and havingfun - I love love love the rugs and bird/owl/gingko pillows you've posted and am hoping we can create a layered cohesive look. Initially I started this process by looking for a rug, but now I'm thinking I'll look for the artwork and design around that. l agree with everyone who posted about finding art that resonates. The three prints currently hanging are special to me - they depict Inferno, Purgatory & Paradise as imagined by Salvador Dali in his watercolor series of Dante's Inferno. We saw the collection on our honeymoon, and my husband gave me the first print (Inferno hehe) on our first wedding anniversary. We've going to move these prints to the master bedroom. If you have any suggestions for reasonably priced interesting artwork sites, please share! Thank you! mjlb - I'm going to try to get a better pic of the chairs' true color. Also, fyi that the hardwood floors are going to be refinished with a medium brown stain. Thank you for all your suggestions. Thanks, everyone, for all your great feedback. I so appreciate it!! I tend to tackle home projects in a piecemeal fashion, then get stuck because I don't really know what I'm working towards. Thanks again! :-)

The way to make everything cohesive is to have a piece in the room with all the colors you will use throughout the space. A rug, a piece of art, a sofa -- then you take the colors from this one item and develop your decor around it. You also take it through the house and pick up the colors with accents. Not every room is the same color. It can be either darker or lighter, or it can be one of the other colors in the scheme -- light or dark. I am not an expert, just someone who has lived in 4 different houses and found this formula works.

So it's only been like six months...but I've gotten some stuff done. It turns out that when you make it rather than buy it, it takes an obnoxiously long time. I painted the wall teal (eeek...not sure it's the right teal -- it probably reads a little more green than blue -- but hoping I can "make it work"). I finished the quilt, and I built two floating bedside tables. I also hung the lamps and stuck some canvas photos on the nightstands (totally random - not sure they go). This fan is in the works: Now I need help figuring out a headboard, pillows, and curtains. I was going to try to get by without a headboard, but I feel like it needs something. I can totally make one, so I was thinking maybe a super simple upholstered headboard in a dark charcoal gray, like this one from West Elm. Is a dark gray the right direction with this? Ai I'm also tossing around the idea of building a headboard and painting it glossy black or dark gray. Kind of this Pottery Barn one, but definitely not weathered. For pillows I'd like to do geometric black and whites to tie in with the backing and binding of the quilt. Here's a close up of the backing/binding (which looks a lot more yellow than I think it looks in person): Below is the kind of look I'd like, but I'm having trouble settling on scale of print and amount of black vs white in each print to get a well-layered look that "works". I'd also like to hang new drapes (I can make those, too, if need be, but something cheap and "off the rack" would make me pretty pumped). I was thinking I needed something dark to tie in the backing of the quilt. So, to recap, here are my questions: 1)What to do for a headboard? (I forgot to mention that I was gifted the cherry lumber by a friend for the nightstands, but buying enough for a headboard is out of my budget right now). 2) What do I do about pillows? Can you suggest fabrics that might work (I'll sew them myself). 3) What curtains would work? Awesome if they're cheap & ready made, but I can do them myself if it's something "special." 4) Artwork thoughts? I wanted to pull in some more brushed brass frames in other parts of the room to tie in nightstand knobs and lights. THANK YOU in advance for all your wonderful ideas

I'd choose neutral light curtains- linen or cotton canvas in soft white. In LR- Hang as close to the ceiling as possible and allow them to stack outside the window to increase the Window's size. I'd choose an oil rubbed bronze rod for a bit of black -an old design rule- very room needs a bit of black. If curtainsxare for a sliding glass door- no valances. Valances draw the eye down and give a heavy feeling. Think airy and light. Hang as high and as wide as possible and allow them to stack the outside the glass & against wall if possible