the Sound of Music...

Nope, this isn't a review, comment or ramblings about the von Trapps.

It's about a new addition to our dining room:
It's been a busy few days getting ready for, hosting, and cleaning up after our first real house guests! Hubs' dad and stepmom came for a visit this weekend and a trip to Bluesfest to see Blue Rodeo (which was, as usual, fantastic). They've retired to their cottage in Quebec, so they don't come to "the city" too often, and it was nice to finally get to host them for a change.

They brought with them lots of hugs, stories and...a piano. Yes, I knew it was coming. Yes, I knew it was coming this weekend. Yes, I know hubs loves it and has been playing every free moment since we got it. Yes, it's a lovely heirloom from several generations of his past and it'll be great to have.

But for now, I don't know what to do with it.

There's so much wood in that room and there's not much of a budget to make too many changes (that I can think of).


Obviously, the first thing to do is reupholster the seat. C'est facile! Easy peasy. And of course, hang up some art work on the walls. Now that we have it, and once we determine the layout, we can finally do that, and that'll make a huge difference.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can lighten this space up?

(Besides not take photos at night?) Or how I can make it more interesting?

I'm thinking of re-recovering the dining chairs as well. Perhaps to match the piano bench? Yay or nay?

The dining table and chairs are actually from the same family and same original owner. About 5 years ago, hubs and I stripped it, routered the edges and stained it, as well as recovered the chairs for a huge improvement. Now it's pretty, sentimental and a little piece of history. Something I hope we can eventually work out with this piano.

So...ideas? Help. Please.

Edited to Add: Hmmm...I came across this post today. Coincidence???

Dining Room Eye Candy

**Usual disclaimer: I'm sorry but I just can't remember to take the source information when I'm saving inspiration pics, so I don't remember where I got these from. If you know and would like it sourced, please let me know.**

Happy Friday!

Pretty Pendants

After drooling over one too many pendant lights, here are some of my faves:

Pendants 1 by Alray98 on Polyvore.com

1. Dahlia Pendant
2. Knotted Rattan Pendant
3. Bronze Pendant
4. Small White Pendant
5. Ikea Rutbo Pendant
6. Black Mumm Silk Pendant


Pendants 2 by Alray98 on Polyvore.com

1. Kimono Silk Pendant
2. 2-Tier Round Pendant
3. Stripe Rendant
4. Silver Baroque Pendant
5. Ventura Square Pendant

I'm thinking of a simple one for the family room, and either the exact same, or a fun one for the dining room.

I'd love to use the Dahlia pendant from board 1 in the dining room, but it's only 10" high x 13.5" wide and the room is 10'4" by 17'6". According to Style at Home, a chandelier should have the diameter of 2 x the width of the room, but converted to inches. i.e. the width of the room is 10'4", so the diameter of the lighting fixture should be (10.3 x 2) or 20" at a minumum. That's a big friggin light fixture!

I wonder how hard it would be to create your own. Buy the hardware and then use some sort of paper crafting to create the shade? Maybe that's too ghetto for such a big dining room....who knows.

Any ideas?

Let there be light!

I came home last night to another few surprises (I could get used to this!).

One of the surprises and the least pleasant of the two was hubs' progress on his trim obsession. He'd picked up a whack more of the smaller trim and had installed some throughout the entrance area:

Don't get me wrong-there's nothing unpleasant with the actual project. In fact, I like it a lot more than I thought I would (despite the "trial post" not actually being much of a trial), it's the sound and smell of the nail gun that's unpleasant.

The second, more surprising, of the surprises was lighting in the dining room. Hubs told me to come see my surprise, which I couldn't, so he told me to check out the dining room. I saw nothing other than additional trim work and the corresponding dusty floors. Eventually I looked up and saw pot lights. I wasn't entirely in on the pot light plan, so for that I'm not sure how I feel, but they look great, so that's what matters most I guess.

Here's the dining room without the lights on (and as it has been for the past 2.5 months since we've had no lights installed in there):

And with the potlights on:
It's a little blurry because I had to turn off the flash in order to actually see the difference, but you get the idea.


Also, you can see our previous light source on the buffet on the left. That bare bulb that's not even plugged into the switch outlet, so you'd have to walk over to it and turn it on. Nice, eh? At least now we can find a nice shade for it and use it as pretty decoration.

Next step is the chandelier, and I think I've finally convinced hubs that a pendant light is the way to go. Soclose!

Crown Royal

A surprise transformation is taking place at our house right now, and I love it.


Hubs was given free reign to some extra crown moulding from his constructon site and is taking FULL advantage of it. We've always have dreams of having crown moulding, but they were future dreams and weren't planned for a few years.



He started last week with the powder room. I don't really have a before shot because the room's too small to get far back enough to see the ceiling, but here it is after it's been installed, caulked and painted:


The powder room is the only spot that's actually finished, but he made some great progress last night on getting a whack of it up:

Wall above powder room before:


Wall of powder room glamified:

Here's a shot looking out of the dining room into the front entrance post-install:

And my handyman working on that very same section:


And finally, here's our post. It's kind of the trial area for all of hubs' trimming ways, so it was the first main area he installed the crown on:
Doesn't it make it look so lush? And for the price of the little ruler thingy that measures angles, in these parts, we call that a bargoon.

It makes going home so exciting--I never know what I'm going to find.

Validated!

A ha!

I was just going through Young House Love re-perusing their Design Dilemmas and saving some of my favourites.

And then I saw this:

Although the mood board is lovely, it's not necessarily to my taste. However...please pay attention to Sherry's colour palette. Look familiar?

Dinind Room Colour Scheme by Alray98 on Polyvore.com

It's almost exactly the same as the colour scheme I've been considering for our dining room!!!

I trust Sherry's taste and design savvy far more than my own, so I am feeling very validated now that the colours do indeed work together and are able to work cohesively in a room.

Excellent!!!

Dining Room

I've been playing around with colour schemes for our dining room and I think I found one I like.

I know you're supposed to pick the paint last...yeah yeah, find a fabric and work from there. But this isn't for paint, it's based on the current colour of the room as well as some pieces that are or will be in there.


Dinind Room Colour Scheme by Alray98 on Polyvore.com

That's what I have so far.

The taupe is more or less the current colour in the room.

The dark brown is the floor and dining furniture we currently own and are definitely staying.

The red is an armchair that will likely get relocated here for a sitting area/living room area.

Then the blue and white/cream I thought lightened the other colours up well while still "going". I'm not sure of a designer jargon to call it other than they "go" very well I think and I like all the colours in that space.

What do you think?

Some Chandelier Options

Here are some images I've saved of chandelier-type lights we could consider.

One thing to keep in mind is the sconces that we both really, really like in the space:

Although, by no means to we need or even want the chandelier to match the sconces, they're just something to think about.

This is the first chandelier that hubs and I agreed on. It was about 2-3 months ago and this picture is snapped in HD, with (ironically) terrible lighting. I guess it's kind of gothic, or celtic in a way. Something you might find hanging in O'Connor's Pub or something. It's affordable and we both like it, but it's approx 18-24" diameter is too small. Option: get 2?Here are some other images I've saved from online retailers and manufacturers. I think some of them I saved just because they were bearable after scrolling through hundreds of hideous fixtures, so they may vary in style quite significantly. Also, I was trying to keep a fairly open mind and not immediately rule out certain styles just because.

Thought? Likes? Hates? Loves? Opinions?

I need help!

Dining Room Decisions

I spent some time in the dining room yesterday. For no reason in particular, just to look at the room and think about what I'd like it to look like down the road.

Here's the main level floorplan with the dining room circled:

It's really big. Strangely and unnecessarily big. As you can see, it's 10'4" x 17'6". In a perfect world, that space would have been attributed somewhere else (garage entrance), but since it's not we just have to enjoy the cavernous room and make the best of it.

Here's the view from the foyer in:

And from the window seat out:

So here's the problem: I have NO idea what to do in this space. Actually, that's not accurate; I have too many ideas and options. It's awkward and big and I'm not used to those things in a room.

Specific Decisions:

1) Window coverings: There are a lot of windows in here. And they're big. Originally I wanted to do plantation shutters in there. But I'd like some nice drapes as well to soften it up a bit. But this brings problems in itself...1-the first window is about 4' lower than the other 2, so the blinds would start in different places. 2-The main window has those 2 scones that we love there. If we had drapes, they'd likely hang right there. Hello fire hazard!

2) Lighting: Believe it or not, that lone bulb isn't our vision for lighting in this room. We'd like to have a nice chandelier in there sooner rather than later, but halfway through the room, the ceiling juts up about 4-6'. So we don't know where we'd hang the fixture. Also, we'd need to find a pretty big one so it matches the scale of the rest of the room. And..we don't know what style to go for on top of that.

3) Layout: Should the table to smack dab in the middle? Should it go closer to the window and have a little seating/reading nook at the entrance of the room? Should the table be closer to the door and have the seating/reading nook closer to the main window? Also, FIL is giving us the piano from their house...where will that go?

4) Wall decoration: ???? Mirror? Clock? Paintings? Shelves? Hutch?

But...I am excited to have a window seat made. I was sitting there for a while last night and though it's nice---damn it's uncomfortable just sitting on a plank of wood! I'm thinking that whatever I end up having the drapes be, I'll have the window seat cushion piped in the same fabric.

Here are some alternate (albeit crooked) views of the room:

A close up of the window seat (and our frames as yet unplaced):

The lone short window in the space:

And the same window from farther back, displaying the weird ceiling height problem:

And an impossible-to-ignore shot of the awkward ceiling height thing:

Although, I keep saying it's a problem. It's a nice problem to have. It opens the space up a lot. It's just an obstacle, or challenge we have to consider...not really a problem.

Here are the pictures we're thinking of hanging on the main wall (on your right if you were walking into the room). They're large in normal situations, but kind of get lost in this space. We've discussed framing them to give more presence, painting a section of the wall as a pseudo-frame, using moulding to help define them, etc:

And some other ideas I had, although not necessarily immediate and by no means certain:

*Crown moulding: This will happen eventually throughout the main floor at least.
*Chair moulding (and possibly wainscoting): just an idea.
*Built in nook shelving: Don't know where-possibly on either side of the entrance???
*New dining room chairs: More like parsons chairs so we could fit a few more around the table.
*Area rug: To lighten the space up a bit and because they're pretty.
*Under window seat nook: A couple basket-sized storage areas to keep stuff. It's just empty space anyways. Alternatively, we could fashion a hinge open-able top of the window seat to make that space useful.
*Drapes: Have the two-panel thing, where the main window is covered by one fabric and there's a section at the bottom with a different fabric.

Any ideas? Tips? Opinions?

Even more baby steps

These baby steps are really adding up...or so you'd think.

Here are a few more glimpses of little things we've done here and there in an extremely gradual effort to get our home "done for now". A quick observation I've made while reviewing the photos, though, and a bit of a disclaimer: Everything that's put up on our walls photographs very, very plain and forlorn. I don't think they look so bare when I'm actually in the space. But then again---we're taking our sweet time filling up the space, so it could very well be a bit of bareness as well as bad photographs.

Regardless, here they are-don't judge me by my sparseness:

Our garage entry:
This is definitely the most used entryway for our home. It's pretty much the only one hubs and I use. Guests obviously use the front door, and if we're not driving, so do we. So we needed a little mirror here for our last-minute glances on our way out. This one is a find from the Third World Bazaar a couple years ago. We also picked up some nice hooks at HD last week which we'll screw to the bottom of this mirror for our keys.



One of the dining room walls:
Until I find an affordable mirror like the ones in yesterdays post, or a suitable alternative, we've decided to put up this Robert Bateman painting. It's a lovely houwewarming gift from our last home from hubs' dad and step mom. You can't tell, but it's a beautiful hand drawn jaguar. There will also likely be a shelf underneath it at somepoint in the future (not to mention the replacement of that bare lamp in favour of a chandelier if we ever agree on one we like):

Upstairs hallway:
On the wall between the 2 spare bedrooms is this little wall. I've always loved this frame (an engagement gift from my Godparents) but have never put it up. By the time I found (read: decided on) suitable photos, it was time to stage our house for selling, so I was minimizing the personal photos everywhere. Now it's a wonderful reminder of our wedding day and some of our favourite photos. Hubs and I aren't big with PDA's so we love that it's upstairs, so we can enjoy the memories and reminisce but it's not on display to anyone and everyone who enters our home. The quote in the middle says "All because two people fell in love". I love it: