Nice- What about adding an artistic art print between the windows. I love B/W photos or perhaps a vintage poster? You could then do place mays to match and perhaps an accessory or too in the hutch of the same color. Love the lamp btw.

I would remove the pic next to the hutch on the right, its too high and a little too big, something there with a different shape would work better. Are the little rooster pics staying? Maybe those stacked one above the other might work better. Group them.

How's this?

White wash

The pic matches nicely - looks good - placemats can look wrinkly and dated - do you have a drawer nearby to store them? Do you always eat at that table and need them there? Showing all the wood would make the table look prettier. Look at the pics of dining rooms that you like and find what you like most about them! What they keep on the table, etc ...

What is white washing?

It puts a sheer layer (or heavier depending on application) over the furniture .. i just got a new dining table today that has a lime wash over it but i've also used thinned down paint to put over brown furniture to create the look.

This is a heavier application

I can paint walls but that's it! I can't distress, sand, stain, or anything involving refinishing. Anything I've attempted has ended in tears or screaming! Lol

just like you said, the whole thing with dark oak color makes the room seem dull and heavy. you can't refinish it with lighter wood veneer?
what about changing the area rug to a lighter color? that might help

Anne Sloan chalk paint is easy to apply

Here are some ideas for the kitchen. It doesn't cost much to remove things.

Unless you love it and put it up, remove the wallpaper. Wash off the glue, prime and paint.

Remove some upper cabinets. I've seen some lovely kitchens with few to none upper cabinets. Decorate or put up shelves. Remember, open shelves need to be kept neat and a minimum of stuff on them. If you are a busy student, that might be a chore you don't want.

Remove doors to a set of cabinets and turn into display shelf. This may require painting or adding something like beadboard wallpaper or beadboard fiber board to the inside of the cabinet. There are kits for installing a plate rail in a shelf. You can also buy a pretty display cabinet - might not be in your budget now. Got a friend who is a carpenter?

This is more expensive - get a microwave for your counter or move it to a different cabinet. Get a wood hood and vent insert. I got both online for about $600 for both. A pretty hood is a French Country touch.

A skirted sink can have a French Country look, especially if you use a toile fabric. Remove a couple of lower doors and use crates or baskets. Be sure if you have pets or little ones that there is nothing in a basket or in a skirted cabinet that could be harmful. You can do this without changing out the cabinets or painting them. They will become background for the other charming details and less noticeable.

I have lace panels on my front windows - pulled to the side during the summer, (the left window tied back to the left, the right window to the right) falling strait during the winter for my cottage look - a little French Country - or so my French sister-in-law has told me.

Less upper cabinets:

Baskets:

Open shelving, skirted sink.

From French Country Cottage blog:

Wood hood:

Nothing is worse than a beautiful antique or vintage piece with great wood and great workmanship that got slathered with paint. If the paint job is good, you will get a result not much different from painted MDF from IKEA and if the paint job is bad, the IKEA piece will look better.

It's hard to tell the quality of your furniture from the pics, but it looks pretty good. If you don't like the furniture, that's your taste, but at least sell it. Don't paint it.

The furniture is not the reason your room seems dark: it's the dreary beige walls and the closed blinds. Paint your walls white, put turquoise sheers on your windows (and ditch the valence) and add a turquoise tablecloth. Your room will be bright and totally different.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with painting antique furniture that has family meaning and value. This brings new life to cherished heirlooms, and in turn, can continue to be used rather than discarded, sold or auctioned, UNLESS another family member wants to use them "as is". With a quality paint job in the right color, an antique becomes chic and artful decor. Why is painting exposed wood grain such a "no no?" ...as if it is a religion?

Yes, agree! My grandma had a beautiful heart-shaped chair that was upholstered in rose velvet, she kept the chair in a special place in the parlor -- it was my favorite chair! She decided back then to get it reupholstered to a neutral beige. Now i have the chair in my house and i am THANKFUL that it is not rose and that she changed it to be more neutral!!! They did a wonderful job upholstering it, looks just as good as before and now its able to continue being used! (although i'm still trying to find the perfect place for it to fit in!) Sometimes keeping things in their original form makes them not as useful!

Enjoy and have fun! It will show in your interior decor!

If that's potpourri, it can interfere with food smells on the table, put it in the living room instead. Try apples, lemons, ferns,or flowers on the table - something bright and alive.
http://houzz.com/photos/31969
For easy budget-friendly window treatments, hanging sheers behind the valance would camouflage the blinds and still give you privacy. Like this, http://houzz.com/photos/16359062
If you don't care if they open, you don't even need a second rod. Just pin/Velcro/clip them to the back of the existing valance.

LET ME JUST SAY- I FEEL YOUR PAIN- My husband and I between mothers and grandmothers ended up with 3 dining tables, 3 china closets, two buffets, 2 secretarys and a red persion rug- I lived with it all for 13 years until finally I took out all the pieces I didn't want and stuck in a 4th bedroom and closed the door-lol- Hubby will not get rid of anything that belong the mother or grandmother and of course any change to it is out of the question.

Now I love my new rooms and he is happy that we still have the old pieces! wishing you lots of luck!

house2514 -- i'm in the process of doing the same!!! It feels good to be FREE of everyone else's furniture and finally have a room all my own! Took me to my 40s to do this -- Brooke don't wait this long lol, start now losing one piece a year! :))

My Dad passed away when I was 14 from cancer, i spent most of my time with him. He was a single dad, with a big house so this furniture all fit his personality perfectly. The hutch was his "tool box" in the garden and a secretary was his gun cabinet....with that being said, he wouldn't care at all if I redid some pieces! It's just me actually not messing them up if I do paint a piece!

In the garage not garden!

about the missing leaf....check under beds and behind couches.

There's about 4 different homes it could be in, when he passed away my mom, grandparents, and aunt all stored what they could to save for me!

Sorry about your Dad. I hope some of these pieces bring back good memories for you! Painting isn't as hard as you would think as long as you like the distressed look!!! Almost can't go wrong - especially if you use milk paint

check this out: http://www.missmustardseedsmilkpaint.com

I was thinking, could you use the piece by your front door in your bedroom? Put a nice fluffy pillow on it and hang some hats and pretty stuff on it?

It's starting to look better without the rug, valances, and placemats! And that's a great idea, but right now our bedroom is filled with huge furniture, and it's not a very large master bedroom! We are going to eventually be getting different furniture in there after I have a ring! We need a bigger mattress. Thor (our big baby german shepherd) refuses to sleep anywhere else! We even built him a bed but he has returned to ours! See photos below! I'm not exaggerating

Looks much better! And those were just small easy changes. LoL @ Thor!

Thor is perfectly named!

Thank you!! He's just a big baby! He just had a birthday! Lol

Also if you have any ideas On how to incorporate these pieces without painting please suggest! :)

Your dining room looks 100 time better. Good work; do you love it?

Take everything out of your hutch and replace with only white things with one item on one shelf. Hopefully you can find white items that you use everyday that will show to advantage in the cupboard white mugs, mixing bowls, serving dishes. Find a large anything, bowl, bucket, plate tray fruit bowl and have it filled wiht fruit and or veggies every day.

This is an overworked design idea but lends itself well to your coat seat. Nice area for a hat display; straw hat are so pretty and can be found cheap at wal mart etc. This idea was done alot with hall trees but I could not find a picture in the Houzz files. But then again you could hang pretty terry hand towels on the hooks and place a basket filled with extra rolled up wash cloths and tea towels and hand towels that you use every day in the kitchen sittingn on the seat.

I would switch the cat stuff and the plant stand and hang chicken prints vertically over the cat stand and the clock over the the plant stand. Might show the pretty over the practcial.

If in doubt anything you place in your house should take up 2/3 of the space you are putting it in be it table, wall, bed, books, art, furniture. Just how the brain works.

And every item should have something in common with something else in the room, color, shape, weight, texture so your room doesn't look like a furniture store.

Bottom of light fixture should be 30 - 36 inches above table top; yours look high but could be camera angle.

Sorry to go on so! It is after all your lovely home for lovely people. Houzz is a great idea place!

"And every item should have something in common with something else in the room, color, shape, weight, texture so your room doesn't look like a furniture store." --

I found this interesting, could you please give a few examples, soosun2, what this means or how to do this!

I'm impressed with the change. Nice work!

You can add color and update your look without painting the furniture. Obviously the below photograph has more upholstered furniture than you do but it certainly shows how you can use color to "update" your brown antiques. I think it is a wonderful look...especially for someone young. I noticed that a lot of your art is brown tinged and tends to have more "country" subjects. Maybe trying some really colorful pictures, accessories, rugs, etc. would make you feel a lot happier with the things you can't change.

Also, you can brighten up that hutch by putting wallpaper or fabric inserts on the back in between the shelves. It's pretty easy to do and easy to undo if you want something different later. Here is an example (minus the animals)

Maybe??

Hmmm .. maybe try something more like this : ) An inexpensive way to change pillows is to get pillow covers and put them over your existing pillows, Amazon has them for as low as $6.

This isn't quite the same as what you have but still could use decor ideas from it

Seasonal change you could get ideas from ...

It's hard because the mirror is so long, can't really hang a pictures or anything, and the bench is too low to be a shelve.

What if I made this into two panels for the kitchen windows?

I don't think it would work with the wallpaper - also, it looks really nice in your bathroom with your matching rug! Are you feeling like the windows are too bare?

Brooke - what are your feelings about the wallpaper? We can work with it if you love it or tell you how to take it down if you don't.

I have a few Amish wood pieces and other wood pieces throughout my home - and wood kitchen cabinets, but it doesn't feel heavy or too much because everything else is light and airy.You have white trim which is very helpful. The blinds are down in your pics - perhaps so you could take a picture without glare? Are they usually down or up?

Your house is not cluttered, but there is a lot of decor items on kitchen cabinets, on counters and in the hutch. These are possibly part of the stuff you have inherited and perhaps your storage is limited, but consider taking it all out and putting a few pieces back a bit at a time. You can rotate pieces seasonally and if there are some small decor items that just aren't your style, perhaps they could be donated or sold.Sometimes lots of small items can also make a room feel heavy.

I meant behind the kitchen table! Lengthen the curtains with fabric in a brown at top or bottom! And the wallpaper is going!!! But I'm stuck because whatever color I paint the kitchen I have to paint the living room too! They share that common wall!

And do something like that

That would open it up a little?

Update on my ugly oak kitchen!

;)

Wow - you certainly have gotten a lot done - very pretty. What paint did you use?

Wood shutters painted the same color as your cabinets would look better than the kitchen window treatment shown in your first pics.

Do you have a back hall or mudroom for that hall tree by the front door?

Could you use the china cabinet you now have in another room (perhaps one with less oak) as a stuff cabinet -- think curio cabinet but for storing stuff other than just a few items to be displayed -- then get another china cabinet you prefer. You could use the one you move out of your dining area for media related items (movies or audio recordings) or to store collectibles or hobby stuff or for a place to put framed family photographs and or those better vases, cookie jars, candle holders w/candles not currently in use for their intended purposes and/or nick knacks or trophies or mementoes of trips, etc.

Chalk paint and the soft and dark waxes!