So for your dining room, ideas to bring color in (not necessarily all at once):

1) Frame a grouping of your pictures from Colorado. Should take up a large space on the wall --

2) Gauze slipcovers for your chairs. Can still see the shape of the chairs but bring some light or color to the shape.

3) A really over the top rug

2) Reupholster the chairs. Add an upholstered bench in a coordinating fabric, you could keep it against the wall and switch it out with your chairs from time to time. here are some fabrics to give you ideas. These are at Hancock Fabrics, which I can be found almost anywhere:

Dining Room Inspiration and Desire to Inspire

I found all the below pictures on desire to inspire, a very cool blog, when I was looking for dining room inspiration. Please go there immediately to find out all about the original sources of these and to see the rest of the beautiful pictures and posts. Note the first picture, it is in fact my Isadora Duncan fantasy room!

Haven't finished picking out pictures for the picture ledge.

The plants go all the way around the room at the bottom.

The art we created isn't clear enough, need to take more photos so you can see what we did. It is Lusterstone with leaves arranged on it.

http://www.goodshapedesign.com/shop_work.html