Sunday, July 29, 2012

Granny Cushions

When my Grandma downsized and moved into a Retirement home she gave me a set of Windsor chairs.


(Oh in case you are wondering about the patch of miss matched wall, I Photoshopped it. Under the patch is an incredibly ugly gold switch plate cover... this place is just full of "treasures" like that)
The are in great shape! I love how they seem hug you when you sit in them.
I keep one by the front door, for those difficult shoes and boots applications,  and one stays in the guest room.  But if we ever have more than six people over for dinner I'll bring them out to use at the table. 
My plan is to recover the cushion with the same fabric that I used to recover the dining room chairs.

From this


To this


I still need to put some covered buttons on them, but so far I love how they look :)

Hopefully I'll get them done in the next few days. Then the next thing on my list is to find sconces... but its proving to be more difficult that I expected.... there are just way to many choices out there. 





Saturday, July 28, 2012

Sideboard Struggles

So now that we've got the dining table and chairs, I've been on the hunt for a sideboard.  Obviously not something that will match the table and chairs perfectly, I'd actually prefer something that I can paint. I've found a few on Kijiji, but most of them were pretty warn down.  Well the fates were smiling on us today, because I went to a BBQ at a friend of my mom's, and it just so happened she is selling a sideboard.  I had convinced myself it was to good to be true, but went down into her basement to check it out anyway.  And it's perfect!! Exactly what I was looking for. I did get a picture but it was with my Iphone, so it's not the best quality.  But it looks similar to this one.

gehringroad
Right now its just a natural wood colour, I would like to paint it, but I am having a difficult time deciding which colour to paint it.
With all of the white wainscoting, I'd like to stay away from white.  So I'm thinking a cream or powder blue.

cream

powder blue
 I am leaning more towards the powder blue.

Hopefully I can pick it up at the beginning of the week :)

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Playing Catch Up

I have to get better at updating this blog :)
We have been busy around here making this house feel more like home, and I'm proud to say that we are accomplishing it!! So awhile back my mother in law was here and she was nice enough to help me pull down the wallpaper in the dining room, which turned out to be the easiest wallpaper removal in the history of the world. It took us just over an hour! So imagine my surprise when I started to pull down the wallpaper in the guest room, and it decided to put up a fight.  Its going on three weeks now and its still not off the wall yet... Before you ask, no I haven't been working on it for three weeks straight, I work on it, get frustrated with how much wall is coming off with the wallpaper and stop for a bit. Apparently the previous owners thought that glue (not wallpaper glue, just random glue) in any old place was the proper way to hang the paper... So it comes off like a dream and just when I'm starting to feel really good about myself, everything comes to a grinding halt and I end up working on a small section for what seems like forever...
And that's not even the best part, what's underneath that wallpaper was a REAL treat.


Yes that is splatter paint and hand prints... jealous?!

While I've been working in the guest room (more on that later), Dave has been on holidays and working in the dining room (among other things).  I am so happy with everything that he's managed to get done.
This is what we started with


 (picture from before we moved in)


 We pull down the paper and decided to build paneling around the lower part of the room, then put wallpaper, crown molding and a medallion up.
  

 Here is the paper that we decided on. I just love the silver accent in it.


Here is the paneling, it still needs one more coat of paint.
A quick coat of paint on the top part of the wall will hopefully make any future wallpaper removal easy. 

We also found a great mahogany dining table and chairs on Kijiji 



 They did need a bit of a makeover, and I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to paint them. So for now I just recovered them.


Annnnnnd I love how they look!!
I've almost got them finished, I ran out of staples so they will be done tomorrow. 
It's all coming together and I can't wait to see the room all finished :)