karezz, I like the style les posted, that's sort of what I had in mind when I said parsons with no skirt, but better. I had a spare pair of smallish wingback chairs I got at a consignment store, and put them at the ends of my table in the last house. They looked fabulous but did take up a lot of room. They were also fairly impractical because actually too low for sitting at a DR table. But since nobody ever used the DR table, it was purely for looks. My point is, yes, you could use a pair of upholstered arm chairs there, so long as they go with your existing chairs. It seems like whatever you put there has to have a very plain simple back because the backs of your side chairs have a lot of movement. Being sort of stuck in my own style (18th century QA and Chippendale) I have no idea what kind of exposed wood backs would go with them, other than something that was a decent match.

Thanks budge1!! I just got off the phone with tabletops.com. Holy cow do they have good customer service! I emailed my problem, and in no time received a response from the owner, and he says he's received this exact same question several times and is going to work on putting something up on his website or offering something to deal with the issue. Says he's gonna get his engineers on it :) Nice. Anyhow, he says he's done something similar in his own house, and notched out the table legs (he used 4 legs, 2 butting up against the cabinets and the 2 end ones) and ran a small i-beam down the length on each side which rests in the notches. Then he said he used epoxy to level out the top edge that the soapstone rests on (since the i-beam's are never totally straight) and voila! Apparently it's been holding up for years. I might see about some cross beams still, and doing it 'ladder style' but it's nice to know someone else's experiences (and the guy's a table maker, so that gives me more warm and fuzzies.) Thank you so much for the tip!

Busybee, you are right, a more appropriate place for the DVD's would be closer to a TV, which is in the family room right around the corner. A re-do of that room is coming soon (which will be a whole new post), so the DVD's will probably stay parked here until then. But I like your idea of storing them in a basket or something similar. A thought *did* occur to me to transfer the discs to a CD holder (like what you might carry in your car), something nice, maybe leather-bound and looks like an old book. Like this one I found on Amazon: But would I *gasp* toss the plastic cases??? I just threw out a bunch of old plastic butter bowls -- oh, the waste... That wing chair is awesome, isn't it? Looks like it would be small enough to be comfortable as a dining chair, yet big enough to be comfortable for a few hours of studying, or even just reading. Re: retraining the family -- oh, my liver! LOL. You see those French doors across the foyer from the DR? What would it take to open the door and drop the backpacks there instead? One would think... But noooo, it's more fun to leave it one step inside the door, so one's parental unit can trip and break an ankle after coming home from a long day at work. :-O The lesson here is that my darling children will probably be off to college before they'll be trained enough to lift the lid on a storage bench. I've thought about it, and that's the conclusion I've drawn. A settee, however, is open underneath, and I can just kick the backpacks under it when I walk in the door. :-P Tablecloth and curtains -- I will probably need some serious help here. I should probably get the rug and chairs in place first, and then I'll solicit opinions on those accessories. I admit, I tend to put something up that I like, and there it stays for *years*. (Wait 'til you see the living room curtains...) It's time for a change. I like your ideas about floating shelves and using the wooden chairs to "bookend" the china cabinet. However, I like the china cab where it is because it looks nice through the window from the street. :-) (But I am always open to hearing fresh ideas!) Looking at my pics, it becomes glaringly obvious to me that the upper fourth of my walls are quite naked. I think the chandy that I've honed in on, however, will add some interest higher up. I thought this would coordinate well with the other wrought iron accessories in the room: It still has curves, but not all the scroll. I guess it just feels "old world" to me, which is why I like it. I wish my budget could keep up with my mind; this would be an awesome room already if it could! I work full-time in a male-dominated field, so I am sorely lacking in access to female opinions. It is so cool, being able to bounce ideas here.

I really like the ones with only an upholstered seat, particularly with kiddos. Unfortunately the completely upholstered ones like the last one pictured are exactly like the chairs we have in our offices where I work (as extra chairs and around conference tables) and the ones in my dentist's waiting room and at clinics, so I just can't get the 'office chair' look out of my head. As far as the 'pile of wood' goes, I think the open back of the ones you posted from the nearby store would look airier and make the room feel larger. It's such a beautiful room and table! Love the blue.