Dining room daydreams

As you may have noted in my New Year's post, our dining room situation right now is a little bit lame. We've been on the hunt for a big, chunky farmhouse style table (in fact I've been pinning images of them on my Pinterest page... well, ever since I joined Pinterest), but we haven't found the exact right thing just yet. Or maybe we have, but we just haven't met it in person - behold this beauty:

This image is from a company called Woodland Creek Furniture, which is located up in northern Michigan. This particular table is made from reclaimed barn wood from right here in the state - and you know we have a little bit of a thing for reclaimed barn wood. OK, more than a little bit of a thing - more like a full-blown obsession with its eco-fabulousness and charmingly perfect imperfection.

So I'm sitting here in the living room, staring into the mostly empty dining room, and occasionally holding my computer up and squinting to try to imagine this table in there. Of course this turned into a full-blown chair search, because I have lots of work to do and this is what I do instead. I'd like to get a long bench that matches the table for the side closer to the kitchen, to keep everything feeling open and tied together (instead of having the backs of chairs facing the rest of the main living area). We currently have a couple of ladder back chairs, but I am thinking of ditching them in favor of upholstered parsons chairs instead.

I like the soft tonal stripes on these chairs, and I think they'd play well with the wall color in the dining room (Silver Fox), but Brandon said they reminded him of a circus tent (most boring circus ever?!). We kept looking and turned up these:

(both chair images from www.overstock.com)

I love the bold pattern on these, and the dark brown would match a lot of elements in the house (ceiling beams, counter) - but I wonder if they would be too crazy? The more I stare at them the more I love them, actually. What do you think, oh wise internet friends?