First, is the buffet. A large piece that has a quarter piece mirror on the back. The lovely part of this buffet is the amount of storage it actually has. There is one long drawer at the top that has sections. One of these sections even has a wood flatware bin that fits in it. Below the drawer is three doored cabinets. On each side the cabinet is just open space. Deep enough to store a platter or long baking dish. In the middle is the best storage. There are built in drawers. My mother always kept her dining room linens here and I am following suit.
The dining room is quite a transformation. It is actually the last room in the house that we remodeled. It was painted a hunter green color and had floor length tapestry curtains. As you can see from the photos above, the color was not horrible, just outdated. And it clashed with the olive green shade of the kitchen. At first we were not sure what we were going to do with this room. We did not have a formal dining room at our other home so we did not have any furniture. We discussed purchasing a baby grand piano and making it a music room....although neither one of us play. I even went as far as looking at used pianos but when I discovered the cost of the instrument - even used pianos - I decided it was too much to spend on something that neither Jon nor I could use!
That's when my mother and father offered their dining room set to us. I just couldn't believe it because I can remember when they purchased it over 30 years ago in an old antique store on Two Notch Road. It was covered in dirt and grime and the story goes that my grandmother even told my mother there was no way she would bring that furniture in her home! It is actually quite the antique and is supposedly over 100 years old. The twisted legs on each piece are just lovely and the glass and mirrors are aged. It has alot of style.
I decided to paint the room a darker brown and trimmed the molding in bright white. Many months ago I found a hooked rug that has rust, reds, olive, and golds in it and chose to go with long, puddling silk curtains in gold. I recovered each chair in a striped silk and was pleasantly surprised to see that the original leather seat covers were still there....cracked and used but still in tact! The room is still a work in progress as I need to add some artwork to the walls and need to figure out what I plan to do for a center piece on the table. We also plan to change the light fixture out eventually. I will keep you posted on any updates. However, I do think its been a wonderful change. Its so wonderful to come through the front door and see such a formal and beautiful room........
The spare bedroom across the hall from the red bedroom I highlighted yesterday was also a child's room. The interesting part about this room is that the previous owners had nailed a wood border around the walls to separate the two colors they chose to paint the room. They used extremely large nails to do this....They also attached a real basketball net to the wall! I say a "real basketball net" because it was made of steel and extremely heavy and they used four huge nine inch bolts to hang it with. Obviously this made it hard to remove without - again - having to patch, mud, and sand the wall. As you can see from the BEFORE photo above, it was a sports themed room........a sports themed room that I turned PINK........
I decided to paint the walls pink and use black and white as my accent colors. The whole basis around this room is that we have some original artwork by Lee Vandergrift (see his website link in my favorites) that we had matted/framed in black. The pieces we have are animal prints.....or dachshunds I should say. If you click on the photos you can see two of the pieces we have in this room. Anyway, his work is very colorful and full of life and usually has some shade of pink within it. There was no other way to bring out the colors than to accent it with black. Because this room is small it was perfect for Jon's iron bed that was a twin size. Jon had used the bed through college, but it was originally a naval hospital bed - an antique to say the least. We painted it black and added it to the room with a trendy black and white comforter set and two floating black shelves to hold my Boyd's Bears collection. We also have my cedar chest and my antique oak chest of drawers in this room. In keeping with the theme of the red room across the hall and because they are the two bedrooms on the front of the house I added long silk panels to the windows. The black is a nice contrast against the pink walls and white woodwork. It is not your usual room, but it is "quirky" and "fun" and anyone who sees it in person seems to think it works. And....I've always wanted a pink room......it makes me happy!!!!
This is one of three spare bedrooms we have. We assume from the BEFORE picture above that it was the previous owners teenage child's room. As you can see, there was very basic decorating and a rock and roll theme. I decided to go a different route as this is the bedroom that you see as you come up the stairs. I decided to make it a little more formal and RED! This room was an interesting remodel as we knew there would be some rough patches on the wall that would need to be re-mudded and sanded before we could paint. What we didn't know was that the spots that were bumpy were actually huge holes that had been covered in masking tape (yes...I said masking tape) and then painted over. It was a mess. Jon probably ended up patching, mudding, and sanding 10 BIG holes.....We have called it the anger management room ever since!
As you can see from the AFTER pictures, I did go with the RED walls and they turned out perfectly. I consider this one of my favorite rooms. It is very soothing, inviting, and (believe it or not) calming..... My parents were kind enough to let me dig this four poster bed out of their attic and they also contributed the beautiful gold quilt that covers the bed. I decided to continue the gold theme with long gold silk curtains - there are a total of three panels along a large and long window in the room. I then added a splash of green, peach, and yellow on the butterfly themed pillow and the paintings on the walls. (Remember to click on the photo to get a closer look and a little more detail). This room turned out to be a nice transformation and a succesful remodel. A totally different look and a beautiful room altogether........
As most of you who know me, know that I like to shop and I like to change things up, you won't be surprised to find that I have already chosen different rugs for the kitchen........if you remember from the kitchen entry earlier in the month, the rugs I had previously chosen for the kitchen were greens and brown. In fact, the entire kitchen color was chosen because of those rugs. I liked the original rugs so much that I even had the smaller rug that would go in front of the stove special ordered from Lowe's (I know, I know.....this was very unusual for me since I like everything to happen immediately!).......Anyway, there was one huge problem with the rugs. The quality was awful. They did not wear in a kitchen well nor did they vacuum well. In fact, they looked down-right awful after just a month or so. Even Jon made comment about their low quality. So, as you can see from the photo above, we have new rugs......I just ordered them last Wednesday and they were here when I arrived home on Friday. Talk about instant gratification. These rugs are WONDERFUL! They are blue, green, and brown - adding a little splash of color to the room that was missing. They pull a hint of the blue out of our palmetto prints and bring out my lovely blue canisters that sit on the counter tops! Not to mention that they are extra plush and comfortable to work on......let's hope they wear a little better that the previous rugs! No worries on the old rugs either....Jon and I plan to use them in his new office as they will definitely go with the Dutch Fork green!
The den was the room I enjoyed remodeling the most. The reason being that it is the room that my mother and I worked on together one Saturday. The unfortunate part of that day was that she insisted that I do ceilings and she do walls and there is no other painting chore that is worse to do than a ceiling. Your neck gets in a crick, your shoulders begin to ache, and your legs wear out from going up and down the ladder......But, I regress.......as you can see from the BEFORE photos above the room we began with was very neutral. Cream colored walls and cream colored carpet. The previous owners had very basic furniture and wood in the room that went well with the cream colors. However, I felt the entire room needed updating!
