A dining room in need of drapery!

I got an email today from my blog partner Kelly saying I got nuthin’ for a Monday post (considering she carries our blog with her phenomenal posts, that’s totally OKAY!) and she went on to suggest that I share my new finally-finished drapery with our DesignTies readers!

Yes! They’re done!!

But nope… I’m not sharing them with you!!

How bad am I?! Well… the reason I’m not sharing today is because I have some patchwork to do in first. You see, back when we were renovating our bedroom we used our dining room as our temporary sleeping quarters… and that meant hanging drapery for privacy. The rod – and hardware - that we use for the bedroom drapes however are different from the rod & hardware purchased for the dining room drapes. So… before I can hang (and hem) our newly-made-by-me(!!) drapes, I have to sand and paint over Brian’s patches so that he can hang the rod.

In anticipation for the big drapery reveal (coming to DesignTies soon!) I thought I’d share our dining room’s transformation – you know, to help you visualize just how fantastic the drapes are going to look in the wonderful room that Brian built for me…with direction from moi, of course! ;-)

Let’s start with the BEFORE:

Here’s our dining room posing as a make-shift kitchen. We made all of our easy at-home meals – or dished out yummy take-out - in this room while our kitchen was being remodelled. The drapery and lace sheers (the white bit you see) came with the house and were UGLY! Oh… and the wall colour was UGLY! And the chandelier… not pretty at all (really).

Our little house didn’t actually have a dining room… this room was originally supposed to be a bedroom. See…

In this photo I’m standing in our kitchen area - the door on the left leads to our “dining room” and the door to the right to our living room. To make this a real dining room – and to open up our spaces a little more for better flow – we blew these doorways OUT!

At the same time, we were tearing out all the lath & plaster from the walls and ceiling! What a huge and messy job!!

Once the room was gutted, and the great archway in place, we built a new interior wall. You see… we were stealing 2 feet of this room and giving it to the bedroom next door. You can see the wall leading from one edge of the new archway in this photo below, with the old wall in behind (it came down later):

Next… we replaced the window.

You know… climbing the front stairs that first day we viewed the house I saw this window and KNEW that I wanted this house. I loved the simple leaded glass! Of course upon closer inspection we realized that it just couldn’t be kept – it was cracked and so badly painted shut that it would never open. So out it came and we replaced it with a window that I happen to love even more!!

Now that the new wall, window and archway were in place, and the walls were snuggly insulated (no insulation originally!), it was time to put everything back together. Our house was built in 1939 and we definitely wanted to create that sense of character you find in older homes. You’ll have to tell me if we did!

Drywall and our new chandelier…

Shaped forms in the archway’s corners… plastered…

Simple wainscotting was installed around the room and the trim around the window was inspired by a local Craftsman style house we love…

I painted the room one of my favourite colours – orange (Benjamin Moore’s “Bronze Tone”) – with BM’s Cloud White for all the trim and wainscotting.

To give the ceiling a little more interest I asked Brian to create a coffered look for me. He accomplished this look with strips of wood that he glued and screwed to the ceiling… framed up with a simple crown moulding. The shape of the “beams” were inspired by the mullions in the window. I painted the ceiling in BM’s Sandy Brown, but haven’t yet painted the ceiling trim – bad me!! It’ll be Cloud White, too.

The little piano window in the side wall really wasn’t very special. We considered replacing it with one that matched the casement window you see above, but decided to leave it. Instead, I created a faux leaded glass look instead. I wrote all about this particular project here. It looks great and I love it!!

And here’s what my dining room looks like today (except imagine white patch-smudges above the window!! Ha!). It’ll look fantastic with my new drapes!!

I wish… I could purchase a new dining room table! Brian is my financial conscience and he tells me we have too many projects to complete first. One day!!

Here’s a photo that shows you just how fantastic our new archway works for the room… scroll back to the beginning of this post for a reminder of what it looked like before!!

Oh ya! It’ll look spectacular with my new drapes!!

 

This post is being shared with readers from Funky Junk; Donna hosts a wonderful blog party!!. If you’ve come from Donna’s place – welcome!! Now… be sure to make your way back to Funky Junk to see all the other lovely home decor, DIY, crafts, sewing and scrumptious food photos & recipies being showcased in this weeks’ Saturday Nite Specials!!

Thanks for dropping by… and be sure to return soon to see my drapes HUNG!