A New Dining Room

One of the last downstairs projects was the dining room.  It began as this lovely salmon color and you can't see much of it, but there is a huge marble topped buffet on the right hand side--made of veneered plywood.   Yes, someone had a custom built buffet made for this elegant house and they used plywood.  It lives in the garage now, and is handy tool storage.

Now, it is my dining room, I think it is a marked improvement.  Green is not usually my color, but it turns out that the owners in the 1930s were friends of Grant Wood, and he picked the color for the crown molding and it hasn't been touched since then, so I left it and just erased the salmon and repainted all the woodwork with a brighter white.  My husband took out the 70s light fixture and put in a Victorian brass fixture.

Oh, wait, here is the view from the other doorway and you can kind of see the giant buffet.

Also note the weird restaurant kitchen type door that went out to the garage with the buffet.

Also weird, see strange dried husk things as wall art.

Here is the same view, done my way.

Kitchen Update

My kitchen has actually been done for over a year, but here I am posting the final sink picture way after the fact.

To review, I moved here and lived with this sad beige kitchen for 6 months.

Then I got to live with this disaster area for a few more months.

Here is the same view in my new world.  We had no contractors, mind you, just my husband as destruction guy, floor layer, and plumber; me as decorator and painter of all things--cupboards, walls, everything--with much help from my two daughters.

Here is a little closeup of the 1920s sink and the pretty view out my window, making doing the dishes a pleasant task.  That is correct, there is no dishwasher or microwave for that matter.  I was quite surprised to find that I need neither of those appliances.

Christmas at My House

I lived in a little ranch house before we bought this house and Christmas decorating was a cramped affair.  There was no good place for a Christmas tree, so it had to be tall and skinny to stuff into the corner and even then we had to move tables or chairs to storage to make room for that.  I had to put all my regular little decorating things in boxes to make room for the Santas too.  Now that I have room again, I am out of control--I put two big trees in my living room and a smaller in the music room and even decked out little trees for the dining room and kitchen.  It is also so nice to just add my Santas to the shelves, room for everything!

Here is a little photo tour.  The first room off the front entry is the music room, where we have a kind of 1950s tree with big colored bulbs and antique reflectors.  My girls were rehearsing with the dog running around when I took this picture.  Anna ducked behind Grace just as I took it.

      

Back in the corner is an early corner cupboard that I repainted, and it is home to the Christmas farm every year.

this little vignette is also in the music room

Next room is my living room and here we put a tree with all white lights and blue and white ornaments in the window on one side of the room.

the other side of the room hosts a huge tree with all my favorite German glass ornaments, antiques and special gift ornaments from friends.

the bookshelves are so much fun to decorate.

Next, we enter the dining room, where this little tree is my favorite of them all

I love it so much, I gave it a closeup.  All the ornaments are tiny little antique Shiny Brites.

I love these giant ornaments and wish I knew where to get more.

I love blue and white china, perfect for tiny trees.

I put a tiny wreath on the big china cupboard.

I always love my antique horse, but he is especially festive this time of year.

One more little tree full of Shiny Brites is in the kitchen.

I have this bitty little sink over my real farmhouse sink, and it gets decorated too.

Mr Rabbit always gets a little holiday necklace.

Saltglaze snowmen hang out on the spice chest.