Susan - I have the black cabinet but we moved it across the room by the sliding barn door so it doesn't really relate to the other side of the room with the bed. It didn't have a great spot over by the bed anyway. I have been collecting art ideas for several weeks now with black to try to pull the black around around the room but our style is too much all over the place and none of the ones we like have anything to do with each other and I haven't hit exactly on the right proportions in terms of size/placement. I love this artist (Linda Tilman, who happens to live in my new city!) but I probably need to limit my mod dog art vs have it everywhere: I just can't seem to pick which side of the line I want to be on: just pick something and finish the room "good enough" vs. spend more time focusing on how to make it nice. In the meantime, we just live with half painted/half primed walls and standby furniture and now it's been a few years, even! It's not like we are kids just starting out, either.

Yes true... expensive is the safer route! i want to take a middle road though.. i m going to call the paint company who have been doing paints in this house for the previous owners .... they did the Venetian plaster so they would know ...they r also not the regular painters but high end :/ expensive ones .. but I will call them anyway to see what they can do about the paint. The window treatment I have looked into and it runs in thousands ... I seriously want to stay away from spending thousands on some plainish window treatment .. i would be happier if I could get away with keeping the curtains and spending the same money on a nice buffet for my dining or an expensive crystal chandelier .. what do you think is there any way I could keep them ? Or maybe go with a cheaper jcpenney type option?

I've copied & pasted a comment I made 20 minutes ago! haha Well... I could probably write 3 pages worth of nonsense, which would seem "tainted" because I'm in the business of manufacturing hardwood flooring. But the short version is... over the years, we've provided hardwood flooring for a number of clients, and have NEVER had anyone comment that it was the wrong decision. The consensus USED to be that carpet was preferable, because it was "warm & soft", however the test of time has proven that wood flooring is: A} "environmentally friendly" (being a product of nature...) B} Provides excellent insulation C} Much easier to maintain than carpet D} With the little bit of care needed, it will outlast carpet for DECADES, and with a bit of attention to product appearance/choice, it will remain "in style" almost indefinitely. E} MOST importantly... hardwood flooring is a stable product, which will not "SHED" all of the nasty acrylic/nylon/petroleum based fibers into the air, which is what we BREATH... (that which isn't sucked up by the vacuum cleaner). Most people attribute "dusty furniture" to DIRT... when it's a known fact that DUST is mainly particulates which have been collected by, or shed by CARPET. Okay... I'm done! haha

Cork is an excellent carpet replacement product. It is warm and quiet underfoot. It comes in two formats: A floating click-together format for 'dry' areas and a glue down tile for wet areas such as bathrooms and mud rooms. Yep...you heard me. The glue down cork tile is 100% water proof. As in MORE water proof than vinyl click together products. How? The glue down cork tiles are butted together (no grout lines) when installed. They are then coated x2 with water based polyurethane. The poly seals the seams to create a continuous sheet of cork. The only areas of concern (as with ALL floors in a bathroom) would be at the walls where cork meets drywall. I'm a cork flooring expert. I've done this more times than I can count. A situation like yours were you do NOT want to refinish the entire house because two rooms had issues. Cork is an oak. It has many of the same colour tones as White and Red oak. In fact it starts out quite orange (sigh...ignore that phase of it's life...it doesn't last very long) but soon calms down to a lovely soft yellow which is IDENTICAL to the current laminates you have. Here's how I would do it: I would pick a floating floor that has an IDENTICAL glue down tile option. I would install the floating floor in the bedroom. This gives you the 'total' floor height that you need to match. Now you remove the bathroom flooring and lay in new plywood OR cement backer board (cork doesn't care) to raise the floor up. Now you glue down the cork tile (6mm or 8mm) so that it matches the existing floating floor. Finish the floor in two coats of polyurethane and Voila! A continuous floor with minimal effort. A glue down tile floor (if you hire this part out) is going to cost (labour plus materials) the same as a porcelain tile installation. That's roughly $12-$15/sf. Sounds horrible until you realize you have 30sf to cover...now that's not too bad! A floating cork floor will cost (roughly) the same as a HIGH END vinyl floor installation ($4-$5/sf for materials + $3/sf for labour). www.icorkfloor.com Cork Flooring Tiles Glue Down - Forna Silver Birch 6mm Flooring (icorkfloor.com) Floating Cork Floor - 12mm Forna Floating Cork Flooring (icorkfloor.com) Those are just and example of how to get a continuous floor in two different formats of cork.