updates of decorating ideas

Paint:

I cashed in my AmEx points for Home Depot gift cards and am going to splurge on Ralph Lauren paint. From what I've read, it's much better than Behr and it's a heck of a lot more convenient for me than Benjamin Moore.

Living room: Have decided to go with a more turquoise blue. Believe it is Blue Island.

Upstairs bathroom: Light Sky

Powder room: Harbor

Kitchen: Racer Pink

Woodwork: Picket Fence

Furnishings:
Bedroom: ordered a magenta coverlet from Crate and Barrel and it should arrive tomorrow. I still don't know what color to paint the walls, but I do know that I don't want to keep my current soft blue duvet. And I'm not so sure that a bold color is right for the walls. I'm leaning towards either a sunshiney cream or maybe a cameo-ish pink. Something soft and more like the morning light. And even if I don't like the coverlet, at least it will get me further down the road of figuring out what I DO like!

Living room: bought a mirror for $25 yesterday at Ross! Super excited about this. It's a bit oversized but not huge and a square-ish rectangle. Very simple black frame and a 1/2" bevel around the edge. Figure I'll put it up as is for now, but maybe will paint or silverleaf it in the future? And if I don't like it there, I'll just put it somewhere else. It's so simple and basic and cheap!

Dining room: think I've decided to go with the Martin chairs from Ikea. I'm going to head over there this weekend to try them out and, if I like them in person, to buy 4. My original plan was to buy unfinished chairs and either stain or paint them, but really - I'm never going to get around to that and in the meantime the chairs will get all beat up. I like that these are black - I think it will be a nice graphic element for the room and I really like that they stack. Because they really aren't my ideal chair, but they'll work for now. And then once I do get my ideal chair, I can stack these up in the attic and just pull them out when I need extra seating.
Fingers crossed that they're comfortable!

And I really want a new dining table. I have one from Ikea that I bought 11 years ago to use as more of a desk. It's unfinished and I need to stain or paint it, but it's fine. It seats 4 people but is a rectangle so there's room for my larger plates and serving dishes.

But what I reeeeally want is a dropleaf table. The middle section would be wide enough so I and one other person could have a simple meal with it closed, but the sides would come all the way down so it looked more like a sideboard. Then I could open up the sides and it would seat 6-8 people for a dinner party or to play a board game or whatever. I've found several on ebay that are going for between $600 - 1,000 so this is definitely something I need to save up for. And, of course, check out local shops and craigslist. But I'm excited to know it's out there!