Dining Room

The Never-Ending-Reno odyssey really started in this room. One evening JJ got the gumption up to remove the white-painted bent-steel railing from the staircase (which was in turn wrapped with the

while deep pile carpet from the floor). And so it began. We still have no railing, but have uncovered the original fir stairs from underneath, removed them all, refinished them, and reinstalled them. They have really been the inspiration many of our other choices of materials and finishes, being one of the only large original architectural features remaining.

From what we have found, the walls have probably been wallpapered since time immemorial. And always seemingly in a neutral tone.  When we bought the house they were covered in a very unspecific and totally boring paper in off-white - no loud paisley and floral, but no personality either.

We had to keep with the wallpaper theme because of all the old paste on the walls - we would have had to re-drywall to get any paint to stick - and that was a challenge to say the least. So we landed on anaglyptic wallpaper, which while made differently these days, is historically plausible to be in the house. This paper is textured, and has the added feature of being paintable. So you get the coverage of paper and some interesting relief patterns, but with the paint color of your choice.

We also lucked out and found a gorgeous old light fixture at The Rebuilding Center (see sources at right) that was dressed up with some very unfortunate light shades. These we were also able to replace with vintage ones from... The Rebuilding Center (we love this place!). It has really helped to give some more character back to the space.

It's nice to have a dedicated space for a dining room - however we tend to congregate in the kitchen with friends and family most of the time. Hopefully the warmth from the same salvaged red oak floors and fir trim as the Living Room will entice us to spend more time here.

Projects:

• Remove bent-steel railing
• Uncover fir stairs
• Replace wallpaper
• Replace light fixture
• Get a china cabinet
• Replace table with something low and round
• Put in hardwood floors
• Add fir trim to 'archways', baseboards and windows
• Hang plates on the wall
• Recover family chair