A Little Dining Room Update...

We have been very busy with house projects, as always! We have slowly added more furniture to our dining room and it is beginning to look somewhat complete. We still need to paint the crown molding and replace it on one wall.  

I am still working on styling the buffet.  I haven't quite decided what I want it to look like yet. I did paint some blue to the drawer fronts though.  I think it helps break up the white.  Although, the blue is light, it adds some dimension to the piece.  This buffet was given to me by my parents. It was actually in my room when I was a baby.  It has been with me every place I have ever lived (except Germany). :) 

 

I framed a piece of a vintage, crocheted table cloth and hung it above the buffet. I love it there. Although, not hers, it reminds me of my grandmother for some reason.

This is the view into the front entryway. I am working on a sign that will hang on the blank wall next to the kitchen.  It is currently leaning against the wall...

Here is a little glimpse of the kitchen.  We are still working on it.  I added a beadboard blacksplash, but still want to beadboard the entire kitchen, floor to ceiling.  I really wish we had stainless steel appliances but these were brand new when we bought the house, and we just can't justify replacing them right now. 

I would love to paint our cabinets, but my husband is totally against it.  He doesn't request much, so I figure, he wins on this one...for now. ;)

This is looking down the hallway.  Our living room is at the end.  We still have quit a bit to do in there, so more on that later. I still need to paint that closet door so ignore that....while your at it, ignore the mess in the living room.

Just a reminder of what these spaces looked like when we moved in...

 

  

This is actually after I painted the stairs, but it's the only before photo I have of the hallway. 

Thanks for looking!

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Hallway Table Switcheroo...

My mom and dad had this antique washstand in storage, that at one time they were going to use.  Lucky for me, they never got around to it and it became mine. 

It needed some major TLC.  So after nailing and gluing everything back into it's original location, I lightly sanded it and dry brushed on a coat of Benjamin Moore's "Edgecomb Gray".  The paint was no cost because I had a coupon for a free sample color.  I hardly used any of it to coat the entire thing! After the paint dried, I brushed wood stain over the entire piece and then quickly wiped it off, leaving it with more of an aged look.

I had the original drawer handles, but the knobs to the cabinet doors were missing and had to be replaced.  The table I originally had in the entry hallway wasn't really working for me so the washstand took its place.

 

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Hallway beadboard...

This is how out entryway/hallway looked when we purchased our home. Very dark, and in my opinion, not very inviting.

We decided to install bead board paneling all throughout the hallway.  We are thinking we might take it all the way up the stairs as well.  Home Depot cut them to the exact height we needed and we even had them cut some of the widths as well.  If I remember correctly, we had the the bead board cut to 60" tall and the base boards add another 2" to the overall height.  I absolutely love tall bead board and this came out exactly how I was hoping! Now I am dying to do an entire wall of the stuff in our kitchen!! ;)

We got these light fixtures at Lowe's and installed them ourselves.   This was easier than I thought it would be! We just made sure all electricity was shut off to the wires and tested them with an electrical tester.

Our doorbell was very old, shiny gold sparkle.  So, I painted it the same color as the wall and replaced the old fabric with some cream color cotton I already had.

We still need to paint the ceiling but otherwise we are super pleased with our new hallway.  And it's so gratifying knowing we did all the work ourselves!

Stairway debacle...

Here is our stairway when we purchased the house. It was dark and tight. Even when we did our walk through I said to my husband, it felt a little small.  So skip to move in day, and wouldn't ya know..."sorry ma'am, but this bedroom furniture isn't going to fit up THOSE stairs." AGH!!  A full sized box spring wouldn't even make the turn.  I was a mess.  What were we gonna do?? 
 

Needless to say after a month of sleeping in the living room, I had enough.  So we called a general contractor and got to business.  I knew the side wall was load bearing and since we weren't about to tackle that kinda mess ourselves, it had to be done.

I painted the staircase and rail and we hung bead board down the hallway. Please ignore the ugliness of the staircase wall, we plan on painting the wall and adding bead board here too. 

Entrance from living room side.

We ended up removing the side wall, raising the header beam, and adding two new stairs.  We discussed other options with our contractor and in the end this was the best choice for us.  I painted the stair risers and the railing using Benjamin Moore's "Simply White" in semi gloss. It's my favorite white and we have used it on all the trim and bead board we have installed in our home. 

Now, we can take things directly up the stairs instead of trying to make that small 90 degree turn.  Finally, our family can enjoy the upstairs of our home too! I still have no idea what the previous owners did...it baffled our contractor as well.  ;)