Dining Room Pics and Today's Craft

Dining Room
Finally! I have the dining room pictures ready. First, here's a picture of the room from the center of the opening between the living room and the dining room. All of the "before" pictures show how it was when the previous owners lived here. The "mid" pictures show how we had it before we started the renovations.

This second set of pics shows the view from what used to be the kitchen doorway versus what is now the view from the breakfast bar:

 
What we did:
- Knocked down a wall between the kitchen and the dining room. Both rooms were small, so this creates a feeling of more space.
- Installed a breakfast bar with seating on the dining room side and cabinet storage on the kitchen side. (More detailed pics will come when I post kitchen before/after pics)
- Painted the walls. Twice. The first was a light green, the second was a light blue.
- Painted the dining room table and chairs (green to brown)
- Re-covered throw pillows in the window seats
- Refinished the original 115 year old hardwoods
- Installed new base moulding
- Painted the trim, base moulding, ceiling & window seat the same color - "Cloud Nine"
- Took down the old brass chandelier from the 1980s and put up a new, modern brushed nickel one

I am not done decorating yet, but it's getting there. We don't love the dining room and chairs, but we plan to buy a bigger set when we move eventually. It's not something we want to invest in right now, plus the room is small and doesn't have space for a bigger set. (We'll probably be here for another 4-5 years.)

Here is a comparison of the window seat side of the room:

  
Here is a comparison of the breakfast bar side of the room:

And, of course, the window seat transition:

 



Taggie Minky Lovey Project

I am in the process of making 4 taggie minky lovey blankets, one for myself, one for my sister-in-law, and two for friends of mine and my husband's. They are approximately 20" x 27" each. I just love the minky fabric so much. I didn't love how this one turned out, so this is probably the one I will keep for myself. I need to iron the flannel after I'm done sewing so that it was a crisp look to it.

Here are some pics. (Two will have the brown minky fabric, two will have light green minky fabric.) The first pic is of the entire front of the blanket. The second one shows the back.

  

1 1/2 yard flannel fabric =3.37
1 1/3 yard minky fabric = 9.00
Ribbon = 17.16
Green thread = 1.87
Brown thread = 1.87

Total for materials = 33.27 + 4% tax = $34.60

Total for each of 4 blankies = $8.65 per blankie

Plus leftover thread and ribbon (and a little bit of minky fabric too)! 

Updated 11/15/13 with a few more pics:

 

More crafts! (Neckwarmers and car seat blanket)

My projects have been therapeutic for me. I can pay attention to the details of these projects and put the pain out of my head, at least a little bit. The good news is that we have a plan. Meds for pain management for the next week, and then surgery to place a stent either next Monday or Tuesday. 

More Neckwarmers!
Here are the neckwarmers I finished today and a car seat blanket I finished about a week ago -- I've just been waiting for the car seat, which I received as a gift from my sister at my shower yesterday. :)

1) Strawberry (Not sure who will get this one?)

 (Sorry it's sideways. I'm too lazy to fix it.)

2) Cobalt (gift for my middle sister)

3) Granola (this one is my favorite so far, and I might keep it for myself!)

  

Each one cost under $10 for the supplies and took 2-3 hours to complete. I need to make one for my mother. I plan to give them to my sisters and my mother and my best friend as thank you gifts for the shower they put together for me, along with a few other things. I haven't been able to drive much, due to the pain meds and *ahem* pain, so hopefully they will be understanding and forgiving for my tardiness on their gifts.

Waterproof Car Seat Blanket

It is very wet and rainy here in Rochester, NY during the fall and spring months. I wanted a car seat blanket/cover that was warm and waterproof, but was having a hard time finding one. So I decided to make one. I used this tutorial: link.

I definitely think that the felt lining is necessary. The nylon is very see through, so unless you pick black nylon and a relatively plain fleece material, it's going to show through. I purchased a blue flannel so that the grey would have a blue-ish tint to it. I think that If I was going to do it again, I would use rope for the ties on the side rather than ribbon. I don't love the ribbon. But I do love the cats! (Do you have any idea how hard it is to find fabric with a cat print that isn't girly?!)

Here are pics of my car seat cover:

 

Cost:
2/3 yd Felt = $3.33
2/3 yd Nylon = $5.33
2/3 yd Fleece = $5.60
Ribbon = Part of my stash! (AKA, no additional cost)
Total = $14.26 + 4% tax = $14.83

Cost to purchase one =  $36 plus tax and shipping

Savings = Over $21 (probably closer to $25 or more, depending on shipping costs)

Plus, because of the width of the felt, I will have enough to use to make another one of these. I have nylon and fleece leftover too. I might make a little hat and mitts out of the fleece.  

One more thing...
I am going back to add a picture of my dining room centerpiece that looks a bit nicer than the pics I used the other day, so feel free to go back and check that one out if you wish!

Next up, I'm going to put together the before and after pictures of the dining room. I will probably post those tomorrow.

More home projects

Here are more of the projects that have been completed over the past week.

1) I painted my old nightstand to use in the nursery:

2) My husband painted the dining room table & chairs. He also sanded the table & put a few coats of polyurethane on it. You can see in the picture below it, the legs of the table and the spindles & legs of the chairs were forest green. They are now the exact same brown that is in the adjoining living room:

Former colors:

Later today, I hope to compile the before and after pictures of the dining room. I started to put them here, but decided I want to spend more time lining them up side by side so you can really see the transformation.  :)

 

Neck Warmers & Dining Room Centerpiece

...and the projects continue! 

I'm waiting for these stones to pass or to find out what we're going to do to manage this situation. It's hard for me to leave home because it hurts to sit in the car except when I've taken my pain meds. But I can't drive when I take my pain meds. It's a Catch 22.

I started working on these neck warmers about a month ago. I have 2 others crocheted, but I don't like one of them and I don't have the right buttons for the other one yet. Each one cost less than $10 for materials. Here are the 3 that I have completed so far:

1) Blues & Browns w/Coconut Buttons (a gift for my youngest sister)

 

2) Oatmeal w/Berry Buttons (a gift for my friend "R")

3) Greys & Pinks w/Faux Stone Buttons (I might try to sell this one on Etsy. Eventually.)

The other thing that I worked on today was putting together a centerpiece for the dining room table. I used leftover material from the window seat pillow covers to create a temporary table runner. The crystal vase was a wedding present that I pulled out. I can never have flowers in my house because the cats eat them and then get sick, so I might as well use the vase for something. I found two silver flecked votive holders that I had purchased to possibly use as wedding decor, but didn't end up using them. There are dark red mulberry candles in the votive holders that I found in my candle stash. I filled the vase with some holiday stems that I purchased on sale -- but they will work all year, so that's good. Since I repurposed a bunch of things we already owned, this is the breakdown of cost:

- Champagne stems - 2.99 each X 2 = 5.98

- Champagne berries - 1.19 each x 3 = 3.57

- Brown sparkly "twigs" = .49 each x 3 = 1.47

Total > 11.02 plus 8% tax  = $11.90

Updated 11/11/13: Here is a new & improved pic!

 

Nesting has definitely kicked in...

Due to some lovely kidney stones that my body has decided to collect, I have been stuck at home for the past week. Fortunately, my kidney stone situation coincided loosely with the completion of the final remodeling projects in the house, so I have been putting everything back. Finally! I started to work on the nursery, but those pics will have to wait until after the shower this weekend. It's still pretty bare in there. Plus, I'm waiting on the quilt, crib skirt, valances, prints for the walls, etc. So I want to wait until it's a bit more complete.

However, I have finally had time to work on a lot of my projects that have been set aside. Eventually, I am going to create a scrapbook with all of these pictures. I've started collecting them in a folder on my laptop. But I've decided to share some here too. Here we go...

Living Room Before (Previous Owners):

Living Room Midway (Us): 

Living Room After:

 
I had to angle the camera down a bit for the after photo because the light was creating a glare. Plus I wanted to show off the 115 year old hard wood floors that were refinished. The pictures on the wall and the curtains are the same as in the "mid" picture, though. There is some discoloration on the floor in this room, so we had to get an area rug. The dining room and entrance will not have large rugs, though. I might cover the throw pillows on the couch, but that's not a priority right now because they don't totally clash.

The coffee table does not fully match the room, but it has major sentimental value. My husband's father was a hobbyist woodworker, and he made the table. He was killed in a car accident 4.5 years ago, so things like this are important to us to display.

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Next up is the upstairs bathroom. This is the one room that has been done for almost 2 years, but I still am pleased with how it turned out. We did not want to get rid of the blue tile because it's still in decent shape (and would be expensive to replace) so I had to work around it.

Upstairs Bathroom Before (Previous Owners):

Upstairs Bathroom After:

 

 

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The last thing I'm going to post about today is the window seat in the dining room. This is the project that I've been working on for the past two days, when I am able to sit at the sewing machine.

This is what the window seat looked like when we purchased the house, with red walls in the dining room -- right next to the seafoam walls in the first living room pic above -- you can actually kind of see it on the edge of the picture. Needless to say, it was not a good color combination! These two rooms open right into each other, ugh. Anyway, here's the original seat:

When we first moved in the house 3.5 years ago, we painted the living room the rich brown you see above. The dining room was painted a light neutral green, to balance the dark, rich color in the living room. Here is what the window seat looked like for a few years:

   

While working out the details for the various renovations, we decided to open the kitchen into the dining room. We did not want to have a rainbow of colors in all of these various rooms, so we decided to keep a cohesive color scheme. The living room is browns and blues. We decided to paint the dining room and kitchen a light blue color. The accent colors are dark browns and silver/blues. So, of course, I needed to change up the pillows on the window seat. I decided to make new covers for some pillows that we already owned. (So much cheaper that way, and we can get exactly what we want.)

Here are the before and after pictures of the throw pillows:

My husband and I are going to build a custom cushion for the whole window seat, rather than using the chair cushions tied together as you see in the "mid" picture above. 

In the next installment of nesting/remodeling/home projects, I will show the painted and refinished dining room table and chairs as well as before and after pictures of the dining room. :)