Monday, May 02, 2011

six years later, one room completely finished

We bought this fixer-upper about 6 years ago and have been remodeling ever since.  We've done a lot of the heavy lifting (scraping off cottage cheese ceilings, brand new kitchen, removing sliding glass doors and walling it in and putting a door to the outside elsewhere and a huge list of other stuff) But not one of the rooms do I consider complete.  Kitchen still needs curtains, master bedroom needs baseboards...small stuff.  

In our quest to clean out the basement we brought up some artsy stuff.  I've been looking for a few months for something for the wall in the dining room.  What I should have been doing is "shopping" my basement.
I am so married to an engineer.  If the pencil marks showed up well on camera I would have taken a picture of what he drew on the wall to ensure proper placement.

Bought these cool old chippy painted porch posts.  Jason cut them down to fit in between the living and dining room. and then anchored them in.  We're doing our best to step out of the cookie-cutter suburban house floor plan and add some architectural elements.  We had these hickory hard wood floors put in in the entire first floor and absolutely love them.
 These pictures were wedding gifts from Jason's dad.
It's a bit too small for the space, but so ornate I didn't want to add anything else.  I'm not sure this will end up staying (shhh, don't tell Jason). But it's good enough for now.


This is actually my favorite corner of the room.  Love this little antique (vintage) hutch.  Found it in a boutique in old Littleton that was changing their business and they were getting rid of all their display pieces.  I convinced..bullied...begged my friend Colleen to come pick it up with me.  What a sight we were trying to shove that thing in the back of her mini-van (you're a trooper Colleen!)
I need to erase and start over on my chalkboard menu -- hate my handwriting. It's not as easy as it looks to write with chalk.

I was actually thinking of going for a black and white toile but then found this material and fell in love.  I was so sad that someone else had it on hold.....then it turns out that the hold had expired a couple days before so the sales lady said  could have it.  Yay...and only a tinge of guilt..well there's more guilt really about the price of the material...but yay.

Pretty much everything but the material for the curtains were on sale, used, discontinued or a gift, so splurging on some material -- I'm okay with.  It really wasn't all that expensive a room.

6 comments:

Minka said...

TZ, you have achieved nothing short of a Monday miracle (aside from that whole "catching and killing Osama bin Laden thing..." though I have to admit that his supposed burial at sea has me wondering if he isn't really in a cave right now being "questioned" rather forcefully)! I have NEVER, nor figured I'd EVER, comment on a blog post which featured home decorating or renovations.

It just isn't the thing that usually gets my interest, even though I'm in the process of making the home we purchased less than a year ago into "our" home and doing some renovating and redecorating myself. However, I stopped by your blog to check out what you had going on, and couldn't help but be compelled. I love what you've done with the room. I love the warmth; I love the simple, rustic elegance. I LOVE that semi-ornate decoration on the wall and understand why you wouldn't want to detract from it with something else.

One suggestion, if you decide to add something (I've been in the same predicament with a big space and a special piece that I don't want to distract from: buy some of those hanging flower vases... Not really sure how to describe it. It's like a wall sconce, usually made of iron, but instead of holding a light, it holds a simple glass hanging vase that you can put flowers in; I'd do something simple like a single flower in each vase, and do one on each end of the wall. But again, you might choose to just leave the rest of the wall blank.

And I do love the hutch. It's something I would buy myself. If I find anything like it, I might have to borrow your van and your friend Colleen! Anyway, great job. And congrats for sucking me into actually paying attention to someone's redecorating photos!

tz said...

oooh, nice idea.

and I wonder too about Bin being interrogated in a cave -- and even though I'm against torture I'm a little okay with it in this case.

tracey.becker1@gmail.com said...

I like the posts a LOT! Also, that segmented bit on the wall would fill out the space more if you painted the reddish toned paint in a rectangle around it. You know what I mean? Like a frame of the accent paint around and behind it...

Ann Hill said...

ooh love the frieze relief 3 piece thingo, now what do I do with the shelf above the front door ?
think i'll have to host a "just for the sake of it"evening to get new decor ideas !
Ann

Jena @ Involving Color and Home said...

Your dining room looks great and I love that antique hutch! Thanks so much for linking up to Roomspiration!

Jenny @ Simcoe Street said...

This looks great! LOVE it!

Jenny
www.simcoestreet.blogspot.com