Come Inside.... My Dining Room

Hello everyone!

A little more from my "Come Inside" series.   This time I'm going to focus on my Dining Room.   This, as you will see, are basically "before" photos and then some "Waaayy before photos".   


"After" will have to come.... well - AFTER!   After I finish that is.  If I could just take my own advice and FORCE myself to concentrate on one thing at a time (even one ROOM at a time would be great) this would probably be accomplished much quicker.   But, here we go anyways....

Here is how it stands right about now.  Mess and all.   I do have an excuse this time at least - I am in the middle of redoing my daugher's room (another part in this series - still to come!) and when I painted, I basically took everything that was "loose" OUT of the room.   The large furniture, I just kind of worked around, but with a five year old ALOT of little treasures accumulate.   That's what all the baskets and whatnot around the room are.  

This might be a better view.

Maybe not.   Anyways, the room does have alot going for it.   I love my table - It was custom built for us by a friend and we probably waited for this guy for almost a year.   It's got about 4 extra leaves (there are 2 in it now) so we've got alot of seating available.    And I really love the hutch.   Talk about a cheap thrill - this was a second hand find that cost a whopping $75!!   It's in need of another makeover, but it's got a ton of storage and I love the shelving.   

One thing the room does NOT have going for it is light.   The windows that you see on the left in the photo above are actually looking back out into the entry way....

... which is still half done itself.   You can read more about that in a previous post.

But, needless to say, not much daylight enters this room.   So the plan is to brighten it up even more with some paint.   Again.    But, again (you'll get SICK of hearing me say this pretty soon) just looking at some of the "before" photos does show me just how far we've come.   The below is this same dining room on the day we moved in....

Holey Moley - you want to talk about dark?   This is a good example of some of the custom woodworking that the previous owner did himself.   And then proceeded to paint a very very dark green.   And added ALOT of paneling to.  

Here's a shot of it when we were a bit more settled.   We knew at this point the plan to remodel and add on, so I could breathe a sigh of relief at least thinking about happier times ahead....

You can barely tell from the above photo, but can you see a very faint small square on the floor??    It was like a cut out in the hardwood (try as we did, we could not quite salvage it unfortunately).   We always called this the trap door.   Somebody wiser came along and explained that, given the fact that this part of the house was at least 100 years old, it was probably where some type of stove for heating was.

I really kind of wish now that we I was not quite so impatient, and took the time and effort into painting these nice old floorboards.   As it is now, we ended up covering it with a berber carpet.   Not the greatest, but not the worst option, and it did end up lightening up the room a bit.

Okay, now see the opening between this room and the one beyond?  We walled that room beyond off and it is now our bedroom.   There went the last little bit of light available. 

Oh, yes!  And about halfway through the planning stages of our addition and remodel - I found out I was pregnant!   This is the room when we started "furnishing".   Country OVERLOAD people!    See the little bar table and stool set on the right??  That was our dining room table for about a year and a half.  

Makes this photo look a little better once it's put into perspective, huh?   

So like I said, another redesign (on a smaller scale) will be happening soon in here.   I'm thinking of going much lighter on the furniture - maybe a creamy white finish, similar to the trim.

The trim by the way took about 4 coats to paint over all of the dark green wood!   This was my job and I was so entirely sick of painting by the time it was finished.

The windows need to be addressed as well.   At THIS exact moment, they are naked.  I am quite sick of trying to figure out how to dress them and I'm just going to wait until the painting of the furniture is done to even figure it out.  

This is how they looked for the past year though -- I loved (and still do) the lace from the OTHER side of the window being visible and I obviously do not want to cover them up and let LESS light in.  Maybe a simple panel on either side eventually?

I was given a beautiful platter from my grandmother recently, which actually originally belonged to HER grandmother.  Came straight over from Ireland many many years ago.   I did some research on the pattern, for sentimental reasons AND because I really loved it, and found that it is a Johnson & Bros. design called HOP.   Like the beer, I guess - leave it to us Irish !  I was then lucky enough to find a woman online who was selling off a bunch of plates and serveware in this very same pattern, so I want to somehow incorporate it into the dining room.   It's a very pretty pattern in a soft slate greyish/blue, so it might dictate whether the wall color stays or goes.   One thing always leads to another, doesn't it? 

At one point, I had all of my Lenox "wedding" china displayed on the hutch, in the hopes that all that white would brighten the room a bit.

I don't love it, as it looks a little too "shiny" or something.   Hmmm...

The above shows it with my grandmothers "stuff". 

So, for those with a good eye for detail, have you noticed anything strange about my lighting yet??  (besides the LACK of it)

Look again...

Here's a closer view.   And, want a hint?   There are two of them.

Yes, they resemble breasts.   Nipples and everything.  I have been very tempted to just tie a tassel on each and call it a day.    I very much want different lighting in this room, but I'm afraid that once these "beauties" are removed, the wood behind them will be a completely different color or something.   We shall see.

I have another post coming up soon that I am very excited to share with you!!   I've been doing some "browsing" online for ideas to incorporate into my dining room project and found The Coolest Website.  It's not really called that.    Stay tuned! 

Smiles and Hugs,

Joyce