Making dining room progress

 Hello dear friends how are you?  Happy spring and with the overall nicer weather,  I have made leaps and bounds on the dining room. 

Sanding everything down to prep for stain as I'm sure you know is exhausting. I wanted to do the old wood staining first before I did the new wood.  Trying my best to get it all to match,  which as we know is not easy. 

Taping off old and new wood because I used different tints for the wood. 

Pocket doors getting their color. 

Trying to match all the wood colors. 

After with final color and 3 coats of shellac on it all. I think it all matches fairly closely.  The hutch was done many years ago and shellac sheen has dulled a bit so I imagine the rest of the wood will develop the same patina over time.  After all this I had to touch up paint and prep walls for wallpaper and then hang drapes,  roller shades and clean,  clean CLEAN. The dust caused by this room that spread everywhere was spectacular.  Numerous times cleaning it still found ways to layer on.  I did a full cleaning of the main floor area and let us hope it stays clean for a bit.  So after all that,  the dining room looked like this. 

I could not be more thrilled to see it put together!! I have used this room as a livingroom for many years and probably been used as such since the house was duplexed back in the teens.  My intention had always been to return this to a proper dining room.  Especially when the slag glass chandelier is finished being rewired, it will be hung to sit over a table.  Here is the chandelier before restoration.  A great splash of pink in the room it will add.

I can't wait to see this done and hung.  I however being the ambitious person I am thought "I should rearrange the whole of the first floor to make this all work. " So if this becomes the dining room again then where do I put the living room?  The parlor for years I have used as my bedroom.  So if I wanted my parlor to be set up I had to move the bedroom.  So,  off the bedroom went into the library,  the parlor became the parlor again and the dining room became its original use again.  Funny I thought I put so much love into this room,  only to be used for dining. Since I work from home,  I set up my computer on the dining room table each day and so the room does get a fair bit of use. As I now look over the rooms in a new flow and organization I see my periods of design in my head.  The parlor being the first room I did on the main floor, covered in red and gold. Next the foyer with its greens and creams. The library was pinks, terra cotta, reds and creams and my blue period of the dining room with blue, pink, white and some red. It all feels so rich, so over the top and so useless and I love it all. A vision I created from cohesion in my head. Never knowing how it would turn out but having faith in myself. It's almost artistic.  I created this all from nothing but hints from the past and my drive for my passion. I wonder when I'm gone what will become of it all when I am only here as a ghost haunting this house. Will future generations paint it all white and sterile? Will it become the house from Beetlejuice with modern design of the time? I can't worry about that and I live here for the now but I wonder the houses future one day.

A room that makes me happy filled with beautiful and so many excessive items.  The room comfortably fits the table with 8 but can easily accommodate more. Still need to hang the chandelier,  move the radiator to be a short long one to go under the window,  like thr parlor has and of course one day refinish the floors but I must say it turned out too too shabby!

The parlor also works really well as a living room again. I still have tweaks to do with the art and furniture but for now it feels totally all new and well home.  

So dear friends I have been busy! Always more to do, but the BIG projects in the formal public rooms are pretty much done.  Endless more projects still on the house such as the kitchen,  exterior back porch, repaint the house,  retaining wall and fence. Update the bath on the 2nd floor. It never ends it seems but for now let in bask in the mostly completion of these rooms with a revitalized 1st floor more resembling it's original intentions than it probably has in over 100 years.