the Dining Room (Before & After)

I tend to bundle the Living Room and the Dining Room together since our Craftsman has them defined only by two columns, and not adjacent rooms. We also renovated them together as we think of them often as one room. The time consuming part of the Dining Room Reno? Trim touch up.

We had the horizontal ledges of the buffet fully sanded down to bare fir, restained them and did a thick layer of lacquer over the top to protect them from wear & tear, and the sunlight.

The original oak hardwood flooring needed some serious refinishing, walls had some plaster repair, a few electrical outlets were added from the opposite side during the kitchen renovation, and this girl (yes, me) sanded, stained and refinished all the woodwork.

A semi-blurry progress shot. Floors have been refinished.

The Dining Room is wide and short in depth, which limited our table purchase to something long... very long... which leads to a fun time in searching for table cloths to fit! Minor problems, considering we are able to easily seat 10-12 in this room and not feel crowded. We opted for a bench on one side of the table to change things up, keep it a bit casual and allow us the flexibility to squeeze more seating in if required. It's also handy for parties, it tucks away under the table nicely when the table is used as a buffet.

Updated Lighting, A large table... and eventually we'll buy enough matching chairs

Looking at the buffet, whose lighting will soon be updated.

Hello Flash, View into the Living Room.

Future plans include putting paneling in below the picture rail (it's minimal and not in any of the pictures above), and I'm working on some artwork here in AZ to set along the rails that ties in an Oregon theme that we started for this room. 

Lighting

I wanted to take a chance to talk about lighting... picking out light fixtures is a very personal thing. Then add two that, a pair of architect's... there's never the right light for the right price.

Our home was full of cheap, stock lighting as the person before us took all the fixtures with them and the developer had to install the bare minimums to close their permits. It's sad that the original fixtures are long gone, but it also gives us a blank slate. I'm not sure what is worse... wondering what was there at one point, or the search for the "perfect" fixtures!

Thankfully, we are blessed with a wonderful mom who has a knack for beautiful things. Here are our Living and Dining Room light fixures that she gifted us and we could never replace...  and nothing else lives up to. They are the same age as our house, handmade and one of a kind.

Dining Room

Living Room

flashbacks

Joe and I have just a few finishing touches on the Master Suite before we take a BIG {financial} BREAK on things... for me to part with all the work (my eyes see so many more projects to do!) I am the type that has to justify it. I started looking back on our journey over the past two years and thought I would share some of the befores/ durings to inspire anyone who is also in the midst of a big project.

Whenever I get overwhelmed with the state of affairs or frustrated with progress (I work on a jobsite so I easily forget that DIY at home is much slower and different than building big things at work). I also find it interesting how I so easily block things from my mind, it's too easy to block out the "befores" and lost focus on the progress.

What were we thinking!?

wall repair in the dining room

poorly installed old windows that had major gaps

(it's built in ventilation, right?)

our temporary kitchen that froze in the winter ice storms...


and how could i forget the pink, mauve bathroom
with the gurgling sink (not properly vented) and
toilet waste line held together by duct tape (disgusting!)

our working "ninja turtle green" bathroom

(future project)

the master bedroom (before)

after we had taken out the louvered windows

the attic bedroom (before)