first of all - thank you so much for all of the great comments on the buffet color! secondly - can't you all agree on something? every person liked a different color, but i guess that's what i get when i post a bunch of different options :-) maybe this means that any of them would work??

yesterday i went to lowes and picked up a ton of paint samples of all of the colors to see what looked best in the room.

i think i have decided that red, green and orange are not really good options for me. mike really liked the red (along with a lot of you!) but there is no other red in our house. i'm afraid that would really bring attention to the buffet and i'm not sure that's what i'm going for. same with the green. even though our couch is currently green, i don't think i want to match the buffet to the couch. plus i'd like to eventually get a new couch. i like the idea of orange, but i'm worried that it will look bad with the floors.

strangly, i liked the navy. i think because it reminds me of the color in our guest room.

i also tried a new lighter teal color, as suggested by allison:

and a black option that was suggested by many of you. the issue i'm having with the black is that our woodwork is so dark already, it looks black in some areas. i am worried that black furniture will make the woodwork/room seem even darker.

i also spent some more time with photoshop and got a better mustard yellow:

as well as a few more gray options:
and of course, there is still the original wood: in conclusion? i still have no idea what i want to do. i think i'm liking some kind of gray tones (as heather mentioned, it will go with many other things in our house, plus, as matthew said, it really is all about my eames chairs). i do like the mustard yellow, i've been on a yellow and gray kick lately. there are already hints of that yellow color in other places in the house too. or, i'm still considering leaving it as is and just refinishing the top to match.