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agree with everybody that the original is much better. the "hdr" is just more saturated in color but it has so many dark areas with no details.
since you're doing faux hdr, why not put some detail by painting like the backs of the chair and maybe the top shelfline on the top left of the image. as marko says a little dodging and burning and some sharpening would help a lot.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6037/...19a9cb00_z.jpg
When the HDR has LESS tonal range than the original, it's a poorly done HDR.
And an image with a full tonal range doesn't need HDR....If I wanted to practice my HDR, I would choose another image, not this one.
Your second HDR attempt is about a bazillion times better than the first :) Although to be frank I also can't see much more detail in the shadows, which would normally be a hallmark of HDR.
The softness was killing the first attempt. In fact I wouldn't even have called it softness, it just looked out of focus to me. I don't believe that mere JPEG compression could cause such extreme softness either. I'd ditch that HDR technique and stick to the new one :)
The second attempt is much better. The image is a bit underexposed too . I agree with Marko and would suggest trying HRD on another image.