The Dining Room - Before

While a few of the rooms in our home will require quite a bit of attention, it's nice to have a few that won't need as much work, at least not for a very long while.

Our dining room is one of them.

The largest task will be to paint, particularly the staircase. We will install a different chandelier, and also a different stair runner.

The dining room is the right half of the main floor of the original house. It's open to the stairway going upstairs, and has a walk-through into the kitchen behind it, which runs across the length of the back of the original house. The door under the staircase is the door to the basement.

While this is the original chimney, this fireplace is obviously not in working order, and due to the size of the room, we have no plans of opening it back up.

It's threw me off for quite some time, when it came to the placement of my dining room table. The mantel isn't centered and there is a shelf cut out on the left side. They also centered the chandelier with the window, in the middle of the room, which results in it being centered with the top bulk-head part of the fireplace, but not the mantel or the table.

I decided that I think it looks best to center the table with the mantel, and then when we hang our chandelier (this one won't be staying), that will be centered over the table. This may require wiring it into place, and swagging it slightly over to center, as I think the beam in the ceiling will interfere - of course. I also haven't decided if I will keep the mirror where it is, or hang it over the buffet, and replace it with a smaller painting, centered above the mantel.

Because we really didn't have a dining area before, at least not one that fit even a standard dining table, I had to purchase a new table.

I found this Queen Anne style table, with it's beautiful curved legs and casters, which was newly refinished, and came with three leaves in perfect condition, on Kijiji for $120 - and they delivered it!

I have yet to decide what I will do chair wise, though I'm fairly certain I will be at least purchasing another covered Ikea chair for the other end. The arm chair in the corner is only temporary. The boys were growing quite tired of the lack of space in their playroom with all of the family room furniture crowding things. 

For now, to fill some space, we put up a mirror, as well as my portraits, but again, I'm still thinking through what pieces I want to furnish this space with.

All I know for certain is that the blinds will come down, and everything will be freshly painted.

Here I'm standing at the bottom of staircase, looking into the room, and directly behind me is a door to the small foyer of the front entrance.

I just love the white and wood and stone. There's so much warmth to this room, and the lighting it receives suits it well. It's full of bright and cheerful sunlight in the morning, which is ideal for breakfast, but as the sun sets on the other side of the house, the lighting grows dim and warm in the evening, creating a cozy atmosphere for evening dinners.

Another wonderful feature of this room is that when we sit at the table with the front door open, we can see the boats pass through the canal. 

I can't wait to host a dinner party in this room!