Mistie, Hmmmm... First,I love your furniture. Furniture placement is very important to a room. Especially in a bedroom. It should be a place that you look forward to retiring at the end of the day. It should be relaxing and peaceful. I dont know what dimensions your room is. It looks like a nice sized room. You have a lot of matching furniture with drawers, along with lot's of stuff placed on top of all those furniture pieces giving it a somewhat cluttered appearance. (as most of us do in the real world). My ? is ...(Remember trying to help and saying with kindness) Do you really need all that furniture in your bedroom? If you must have a TV in your bedroom then it should be in or on a cabinet that can also house your VCR separately without stacking it on top of the TV. Try taking out a small dresser or two ,then some of the extra stuff all around your room. Look at your room as a bare space. Now remember the bed is the most important piece along with the night tables. Start with that. I used to have a lot of unneccesary furniture and clutter in our bedroom. I parred down to the bare essentials and now our bedroom is a much more relaxing place to retire at the end of the day. Good luck , Hope this help's.

Hello Everyone! Thank you so much for all of your suggestions!! Les917 - I wondered if anyone would mention that space between the pictures! Actually I'll be mounting 3 sea stars in that space, I'm just waiting for them to arrive. teacats - I love the idea of a mirror over the dresser. It definately needs something. We've only been in our home since Sept. so we've just started to mount pictures and decorate the walls. I love the idea of the tall thin black lamps to frame the mirror. I'm not sure yet where I want the photo that is currently over the dresser. It's not mounted because I haven't felt like it belongs there. I'm not sure about putting anything above the bed. The bed is so imposing that I have been afraid that adding anything more above it, would just magnify that. Because the headboard is so high, it just seems to me that adding something above it would be overkill. The ceiling in that alcove was done that way by the builder. It is textured just like the room ceiling is, so I am thinking that it was designed to be ceiling. The plan had an overhead ceiling light in that space that we did not choose to go with. If I leave the photos as they are, add the mirror and black lamps to the dresser, and decide to go with 2 matching nightstands...what color should I go with? Black, white? Thanks!

You said you looked in the Gallery, which specific colors appealed to you? I love the rendering of Decatur Buff in Newhomebuilder's pictures above, and the Shelbourne Buff by Msrose . My own bedroom has Laura Ashley Gold #3 and it's a great color because it goes with so much. But I like the look of it better during the day, so if your room is already very dark, you might like something more browned, rather than a color that becomes more intense at night. Red

The bead board appears top be oak. Oak is relatively easy to stain as it takes the stain evenly,needing no pre-stain sealer. One of the functions of stain is to not only impart color initially, but to keep it from turning darker with age. If it has been in place for several months, it has probably already reach its dark point. You could stabilize it and lighten it somewhat by giving it a white "pickling stain". the white pigment gets stuck in the grain and any indentations. Hopefully you have some scraps to practice on before commiting to the whole room. If putting a clear varnish over the paneling, the water based urethane varnishes will dry clear and remain so. Oil based varnishes initially are slightly amber and get more so with age. WB urethanes are also much less odor and VOC's , important when working in inhabited spaces. Both spray well, if you have access to conventional air spray equipment. At least two coats would be advised for uniformity of sheen. I would finish and protect the stained paneling before doing the other paint work. If you should accidentally get paint on the bare wood grain, it will be very difficult to get rid of the blotch, which would show through the stain.