Why make the chair more into a chair? Why make it more identifiable? Right now it blends in with the background, so it flattens the image. The back of the chair almost seems like it's on the same layer as the bricks/etc behind it. This further abstracts the image to the eye.
I don't agree with pulling the chair out either. You pointed out that the leg of the chair could be the leg of the table, Gary, this adds to the picture for me, let me explain myself, this has the same idea as my first. It's attached to the top of the table, which is why it's hard to tell whether it's the table leg or chair leg, this further distorts the representational side of it being a chair. In this case, it also creates an interesting negative space.
I also like the water. It adds an interesting, yet sublte, contrast to the rest of the picture, organic.
The way the picture is, now, makes your eye travel all over the picture. There's no obvious subject. It's an abstract of the table, the ground, and the table. Together it makes a very nice 2 Dimensional like design, and more of something just unrepresentational.