If it was me, I would go for some color rather than another wood for the sideboard. I certainly see nothing wrong with mixing woods, but sometimes a painted piece offers something unexpected and fun to a room. Perhaps you could drape some fabric over your existing sideboard and see how it feels to have color there. If you post a picture of the room, including the windows, we can help more with getting the feel of what you want. Do you have inspiration pictures? If so. post those too. Diane

I'm not sure. All of the fixtures (lights, doorknobs, cabinet pulls, faucets, towel rods, etc.) in my house are of the same type (brushed/satin?). I don't think it would be faux pas to have different fixtures, however, it wouldn't suit my personal preferences. I think you should pick what you like best.

Thank you for permission granted! It may be quite some time until anyone gets those chairs, as mom is only 86. May be 10 years before she down-sizes. : ) And LG, I get what you mean about the flaunting. I am starting to get the idea of what goes together and I really do think it is more interesting to add something that is not expected into the mix. I guess I am trying to find the right not expected item. You know, my first thought on it was to use a settee against that wall where the painting is in the dinette. and put the table next to it and the chairs on the other side and the ends. The settee would be maybe a curvey style and be the unexpected. The table is oval, but I don't know if that really matters. I think there would be at least one comfortable seat, maybe two on a settee. Not sure if it would be odd due to the table being an ellipse and not a rectangle. In the future, I'll have to weigh how important it is to my brother and SIL to have the whole set not broken up/ compared to my wanting part. I can live with them enjoying it intact. If they take the whole set , then I would ask them to give me one of my mom's 45 year old black leather club chairs that I've always loved. They've had them for about 17 years now. It may be a solution that would make everyone happy. It would work in my Great Room. I don't think they actually like the leather chairs.

Again, there are so many blues and grays out there that will work with all of your colors. I suggest that you go to your favorite paint website (I love Behr and I go there all the time to choose colors for my house) and play with paint colors that you can visually paint in a room (you can choose the room). Once you find something you like, even if it's a couple of colors, I suggest buying paint samples. Once you get the samples, paint a decent sized section on a wall or two and see how it looks during the day and night. Give yourself a couple of days to decide if that is the shade you want. It's what I did when I moved in our house 3 years ago. It's how I found the shade of blue in my dining room and the shade of gray in my living room, which is in the below photo:This is Classic Silver from Behr and it is a true gray. It looks good with everything in my living room, including the wall hanging that is right of my Mom's painting. The wall hanging has a deep green border.