Happy New Year friends! I cannot believe it is 2016, and I know that it will a great year for all! To start out the first Monday of 2016, I thought I’d share with you my Instagram #2015bestnine. Thank you to those that follow me on Instagram and support me, and to those who do not yet follow me, you should. My handle name is christyrdavis. Now lets get back to business: my dining room renovation.
I’m so sorry it’s been almost a month since you last heard from me. The holidays have been a crazy, busy month. We also had an impromptu trip to New York, which you will see some of that trip later. Last month, we started going into details on the home renovation process (here and here). We delved into the entry and dining spaces, and today I want to really focus on our dining room.
Christy Davis Interiors
To the left of the fireplace, you can see there is a built-in cabinet. We could have left this as a niche to place a piece of furniture, i.e. small china cabinet, but I decided that I’d prefer a built-in cabinet to maximize storage (use all of the space). The cabinet height is the same as the thick cased opening on the right side of the fireplace. I designed the cabinet to have two tall upper doors with caning, and drawer storage below. The caned doors have in-cabinet lighting to highlight my fine china. The drawers store extra silverware, chargers, napkins, and large platters. Eventually I will line the four upper drawers with velvet for my silverware. Right now, they are in their wood boxes that are lined with velvet (which are in the these drawers).
Christy Davis Interiors
We kept the existing center window, to help keep down cost. They were relatively new windows, and why fix what is not broken? I mentioned in my last post regarding the renovation, that this space and the entry were our least expensive spaces and the most minimal amount of demolition in the renovation process. If we had not replaced the plasters walls and ceilings with new sheetrock, the only demolition and add on to this actual space, would be the wing walls for new cased opening and the window left of the fireplace and turning that into a built-in cabinet. We also refinished the floors. They were originally a yellow color, which I hated. Now they are a medium brown.
Let’s take a look at the dining room in-progress photos.
Sheetrock is up! And you can see how I separated the entry from the dining. Also, I don’t know if I mentioned that we did not raise the ceiling height in these areas during phase 1 renovation. We kept the ceilings at 8′-6″ high, but when phase 2 happens, these ceilings will be raised to 10′-0″ ceilings like the rest of the first floor.
Lighting is in too! You can see one of the recessed cans to the left of the window. The lighting in our dining room consists of 4 recessed cans, one decorative (chandelier in the center), one slotted spot light to highlight the fireplace wall, and in-cabinet lighting for the custom built-in cabinets. In this room all of the lighting is on a dimmer. Ambience is key in a dining room, and lighting sets the mood.
Since we are going to eventually re-do this room, we kept the original fireplace surround tile. It’s awful I know. We could have replaced, but I didn’t want to spend money twice here. We were able to save the fireplace surround as well and re-used it until we re-design the fireplace. You can also see where the built-in cabinets are going to the left. Also, I placed a slotted small low voltage light right in front of the fireplace, to highlight a piece of art or a collection of wall art that will be hanging above the fireplace mantle.
Here is a shot looking through cased opening from the kitchen into the dining room and entry. The panels are dropped panels and paint grade.
Stay tuned for more!
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