(((( Karen)))) It's been awhile since I've been here in awhile but have thought about all of you. April & May were horrible personally with lots of travel to and from hospitals. I lost my dear FIL to cancer on May 21 and my best friend to heart failure on May 27 so shortly after overcoming the horrifying thought of losing my mother earlier in the year. Needless to say , I hit the skids pretty hard with the emotional toll in a way that is very much not usually myself, just that I couldn't take so much in such a short amount of time. I felt I had done & done & done for family and friends and left nothing for myself. For a time, I simply reclused to the house and did nothing but cry. What you are going through is NORMAL , and as tears go , in time they do lessen but there's no rush to ""make yourself accomplish anything"". Your loss and pain are still very fresh and forcing yourself to do something creative will not help. If you're going to decorate, you have to do it for YOU. I lost my own dad 13 yrs ago and though I've come to accept that and 'normal' has long since returned, I LOVED my FIL. He's been a very integral and special man to me for almost 11 years. I knew he was going to pass, but I just wasn't ready. My best friend was also my neighbor and I wasn't ready to lose him either, though I knew the time would come once we learned his defibrilator wasn't keeping up with regulating his heart anymore and it was going to wear out. I put him in the hospital 2 weeks before FIL passed and he crashed to a coma the very day I was away burying FIL. To tell you how far off the skids I've been , my table is still set for Easter , minus the centerpiece which I tossed into the basement on my way out the door for the 3hr drive to visit FIL. I wasn't in the mood to see "cute" when I returned. I haven't bought any new pieces of anything since April , the big pug flag I display for each month in the LR is still easter... I just don't care and haven't felt the creative urge to do anything about it. For me to tell you to pull yourself together would not only be wrong and immoral , it would be the pot calling the kettle black. Do what YOU want to do for YOU and in time , the pain will change and you will want to pull out your fun stuff again. Major Huggs to you sweet lady, it's been a rough road to hoe for a long time. :( Sarah

I’m not a designer but I think your instincts are right. If everything else is super light I agree the sofa will look too dark and heavy. I think a light, warm neutral paint would be great, and accents of blue would make that gold sofa sing. I think your existing neutral walls look okay, actually. What if you just tried painting the red accent wall a nice mid tone blue?

Your dining area art limits what can be added to that wall. I suggest that you try moving the lamp to the other side of the sectional. Then you would have room for a large plant in the corner where the lamp is now.

You’ve created a nice transformation in there! Lovely. What are some of your interests? I like the idea of a floor or table sculpture. Do you like animals, trees, abstract, metal, glass, etc, etc? This is 76” tall …. Is that too organic? Here’s a wonderful horse (table top): Lovely blown glass: Great colors: Beautiful Murano: Unique furniture: Just seeing what your likes are to narrow it down. So many possibilities. I’d go to some local art fairs, blown glass studios, and look up works by local artists, too, to get something even more unique.