This was an area of our dining room. Our dining room was originally yellow. I used to describe it as "tuscan yellow" until I was standing outdoors one day talking to a friend about the paint color and saw a school bus drive by and realized it was the perfect color match. Since I like light and airy, I went with Behr's Chocolate Froth above the chair rail and Behr's Wheat Bread below the chair rail. Not only did it double the size of the room, but going with the two tones in a lighter color really lifted the ceiling of the room and made it seem taller--a welcomed trick in a 1923 bungalow!
I am not going to lie, we bought this house for the kitchen. We wanted to live in a historic neighborhood, but I just didn't have the budget of the patience for the full kitchen gut most of these house require and or need. And it was just perfect. The floor tile was a terra cotta with a one inch cement grout. The first thing our realtor said when he saw it was "this will really limit you on the resale--not everyone likes this look." Let's just say that it was the first thing people complimented us on in the kitchen, even before the lead glass cabinets or granite counter tops. Can you tell I just loved it? The one thing we did do was find appropriate fitting furniture for the space. The previous owner had this round table there with three chairs--it was really crowded and didn't suit the true "nook" feel (and square footage) of the space. The print came from Hatch Show Print's store in Nashville and was a limited run they did for a winery that they designed and print the labels for that we actually really love.
This was the room off our living room. Technically a "third bedroom" because anything with a closet counts in historic homes in our neighborhood, it was accessed off the main living through french doors. We used it as an office, crafting space and general hang out space. part of what we wanted to accomplish with this room was to keep it nice and open because when we kept the french doors open (which was always) it made the living room seem larger.
I have to confess I debated posting these pics because while this is the room that my little sis and T painted for my birthday I am still not convinced that I picked the right paint color. Ah well, live to paint another house, right?
This is just one of my favorite little areas of art found in our dining room. Sorry the picture is not that great--I was still figuring out my camera. The one on the left I ordered off etsy (sorry can't remember where) and the one on the right is a framed copy of our wedding vows that T had laid out by a friend and graphic designer for our first wedding anniversary. I added the birds, which were originally Christmas ornaments made of recycled paper, that I turned towards each other to look like over birds and hung above the frame.
Another favorite area of mine was our bar. A friend of mine was retiring and so was downsizing into a condo. He had a entire book box full of all the match books he had collected traveling all over the world from the 60's through the 90's. They were so cool I couldn't pass them up. I then got the hurricanes from West Elm and while I was playing around with them, I got the idea to use the vintage matchbooks as part of our bar decor! The funniest part of this little display is that for about a month this winter we did light any candles because we had run out of matches in the junk drawer--until we realized that we actually had tons of matches--right out there as part of our decor! Sheesh!
The owl is actually part of a pair of bookends that I found of all places shopping with my aunt at Coldwater Creek back in the fall! I saw them and knew I wanted them for the nursery even while my aunt was insisting that the owls would scare the baby! But since the nursery was in progress I set one out here on the bar and made it a temporary home in the fall and just ended up staying through winter.
Hope you liked the quick home tour of our old place. There are still a couple of other projects and such that we did that I never got good pics of--but like I said we live to re-do another house!
