Doing the side table shuffle

This is our guest room, which we call "Cissy's room" since that little beast always parks her butt on top of all of those pillows.

(note: yes, I know, the puke yellow walls...it's actually a pretty color in person, I SWEAR! Whenever I see the pictures I've posted online, it makes me cringe and want to repaint it all. Then I walk into the room and it looks really good. Maybe if I took pics during the day with natural light it would look better, but I never blog during the day. ;) So you'll just have to look at the wretched color since I took the picture just now..ha!)



When we first bought the house, I had a cute black iron day bed in there, and so that black iron side table matched it. Then a few years ago we bought a new bedroom set for our room, and we moved this wood bed into the guest room. (Isn't it gorgeous?! It's an antique from the 1800s. I love how the headboard is very tall. My parents bought this bed when *they* were first married in 1970. It was painted a horrible yellow color and my dad stripped it one summer and stained it. They used it for years, and then I got to use it when I was in high school. When I moved into my first apartment, my mom let me have it. Technically, I guess it's still "their" bed, but not really. You know how that goes.)

(note: ignore electrical wires and crap on the table, thanks..ha)



For a while now, I've been wanting to get something else to use as the side table. But hubs always thinks that's unnecessary when the thing we have is functional as is. The iron table is cute. I still like it. But it was just too small for that massive bed.

Then tonight an idea hit me. I have this antique tea cart that I'd been using as a TV stand in our bedroom (until I rehabbed this antique nightstand) to use instead. Since that rehab, the tea cart was relegated to the garage, where it's been collecting dust. I pulled it into the kitchen and cleaned it up. When I put it next to the bed, it seemed to fit the space perfectly.



This allowed me to put a couple of quilts on the shelf below, which will come in handy if guests get cold during the night (the pink quilt was made by my grandmother and the blue one was made by my mother and her quilting group. Both were given to us as wedding gifts, and they are very special).

The top of the tea cart was pretty gnarly and scratched up. Then I remembered I'd bought this rattan tray for $1 at a garage sale earlier this spring. It's been sitting in a pile on the floor of my craft room taking up space. I tried it out, and it was the exact size to fit the top of the tea cart and cover up all of the blemishes.

So, what do you think? Is the round iron table better, or the antique tea cart? Or is there too much wood in here now, because I have this armoire in the corner:




(ok, so this older photo makes the paint color look *slightly* less garish...slightly..it's closer to the "real" color....similar to that famous peanut something-or-other and tobacco road, but a smidge darker)

I know you bloggers always have good opinions!