Year 1, A Look Back - Dining Room

We have had our little house for just a little over a year now. It's crazy how fast a year has passed! So many weekends spent fixing up the little 1940 bungalow. Since we seem to focus on our ever growing to-do list I thought it would be good to stop and reflect back on everything we have accomplished in such a short time so we can pat ourselves on the back and see how much all our hard work has paid off. The next several posts are going to be about everything we have accomplished in 2010 but I'm also going to list our project goals for 2011. This first post is going to be about our dining room since it is the most completed room in the house I thought I would start there.

This is a photo of the dining room when we moved in. When we first looked at this house our biggest concerns were the tiny kitchen and this tiny dining room. Although we looked at many houses that had no dining room at all so I was excited just to have one! My fiance didn't think we would ever be able to fit a full sized table in this room but I was convinced we could. This photo below shows the small table the people who were living here before us had.




This is our dining room after. As you can see we fit a table that seats 6 plus we have an extension piece to the table so we can fit even more if needed! What we accomplished in 2010:
1) Refinished hardwood floors
2) All new paint
3) Refinished windows
4) New molding around windows, door and baseboard
5) New dining room table and chairs, a great find on Craigslist!
6) New mid-century modern light fixture (won on ebay!)




All new molding around the bay windows gives the house more character and brings more attention to the windows.

New baseboards really finished this room off nicely.

New molding around doors includes a pediment and plinth blocks.


And of course I can't forget all the finishing details!

I found this metal trough at a local modern home store and planted colorful succulents in it. I think it makes a great centerpiece on our table!

New light fixture and woolly wall planter. I love how the hanging plants are like a piece of art and they add a punch of color to the room not to mention plants are great air purifiers.

Our collection of vintage camera's and a mid-century pot given to us by our very good friends help fill this little nook.

Dining room projects for 2011:
1) Window shades

Dining Room Before & After

Dining Room before the start of renovations.

This photo was taken before any renovations had been done.

This photo was taken after a new paint job and the floors had been refinished.

The final result!

The mid-century modern table and chairs was a excellent find on Craigslist. The hanging lamp I won on Ebay.

I've been really interested in living vertical walls for sometime now so when I came across the Wally pocket from http://www.woollypocket.com/ I decided these pockets would be perfect for creating a living wall in our dining room. I love the end result! It's so beautiful and out of reach from our cats who love to munch on plants. I can't wait until the plants grows in more! It's living art!

All that is really left is to install the baseboards.

Living & Dining Room Makeover

Before we moved into our new house the first thing we decided to do was to have all the wood floors refinished and install a matching new hardwood floor in the second bedroom which was the only room in the house that had carpet. The house use to be a one bedroom but somebody enclosed the attached patio, turning into a 2 bedroom but never installed hardwood flooring. The floors came out so beautiful, it was money well spent! This has been the only job besides plumbing that we haven't done ourselves and I think it was a good idea to leave it to the professionals. The floors receive so many compliments!

Once the floors were dry we went in and painted the living and dining room before the move in. After looking at a hundred different shades of grey we chose the color below. You would never think grey to be a very warm color but I just love it! It feels warm and inviting all day and night long! We chose a lighter grey for the ceiling which really brings out the white trim detail.

Living Room Before

Dining Room Before

Living Room After

The floors are so shiny!

Dining Room After