License to Redecorate

We bought our current house about 2.5 years ago. It is a great house, and I love it down to its studs. However, when we moved in, it was covered in scary early 1990s wallpaper. Well, almost covered - we had the blinding red toile in the kitchen removed before we moved in. I love toile, but sometimes a little goes a long way. Behold the scariness (this is from the real estate listing pictures - it's not our furniture, etc.):
Other than the kitchen, the children's bedrooms, etc., the other wallpaper stuck around (literally) for about a year while we decided what to put in its place. Then, last December, we did a major makeover, having all the wallpaper removed and painting done. Along with that makeover, I got my Christmas present . . . My exquisite, magnificent Henkel Harris mahoghany dining room table and chairs. The picture does not do it justice, but here you go:

Here it is in the newly de-wallpapered, and freshly painted dining room before dinner on Christmas last year (behold Master P's Lightning McQueen sippy cup). [As an aside, the dining room (which is still a work in progress in this picture) looks almost black in this photograph, but I promise it's not. It's a rich blue. Specifically, it's the color "New York State of Mind" from Benjamin Moore. The Southern girl in me was a little horrified to have a dining room color with a Yankee name, but I liked the color so I got over it. The light fixture is sadly still with us - It's on my list to replace).

I love my table and chairs to the depths of my soul (Mr. Belle would likely say that's appropriate, since we had to sell our souls to pay for it). However, after that furniture purchase, I knew that it would be a loooong time before I could go furniture shopping again.

We don't have the type of relationship where we typically run purchases past the other person, but if it's a big ticket item like furniture, we have an unwritten rule that it needs to be a joint decision. Well, guess what??? Yesterday Mr. Belle signed off on new furniture for our family room! It is desperately needed - we have a Hickory Chair sofa and a Jessica Charles chair that were once quite lovely, but have been completely trashed by five years of Master P (Miss Priss does her part, too, but it's mostly the use of the cushions as pirate ships/forts/etc. that have killed the furniture). I think we're going to replace the carpet too (I want hardwood like we have in the rest of the downstairs, but Mr. Belle wants to keep that one room carpeted. Boo). So, now I'm off to shop for furniture! It will likely take me 3 months to pick anything out, much less order anything, but it should be fun!