I realized only recently that this is the 9th house my father and I have renovated together. I kind of cannot believe it. Thinking back on each house, our design has certainly evolved through each project though I guess there are some "signature moves", like my father using cedar as trim for showers/tubs and my need for open shelving. Beyond that, I think we've found our sweet spot for design. A broker walked through the house with me yesterday and called our aesthetic "farmhouse Scandinavian" and I thought, huh, that is what I like. So as with every house, this one, our current renovation, is my favorite.
So let's start the before-and-afters in the heart of the house - the dining room. Some history about this house, as learned from a lovely neighbor, is that the houses on either side of the Stow Bungalow were all built by the original owner. He built one for himself, then one for the kids (ours), then one for the staff. While all generally similar, they gradually get smaller in size. But I have to be honest with you, ours is the perfect size.
The woman who had owned ours was moved by her son to a nursing home. I'm assuming the house was left as is because it felt a bit frozen in time. The basement (which I do not have a before photo of - why does this always happen that I neglect the photo-taking on the front end?) felt straight out of the 60s - faux wood wall paneling, furniture that might have been in my grandparents' home years ago. In one bedroom there were posters of Tom Selleck straight out of the Magnum P.I. era. I mean there was a rotary phone in the kitchen! The mint green walls and the shag carpet that has been trampled flat from age sold me on this house. That and the fact there was knob and tube wiring which has now helped us twice (previously the 1850s homestead) beat out other offers. But also, I love me a beautiful banister.
For weeks I was saying I wanted to paint the stairs - the spindles, the banister, the treads, everything. But then right before the floor guys were scheduled to start I realized that between the hutch, the fireplace, and the bannister, that would be plenty of Benjamin Moore's Narraganset Green paint. If I painted the entire staircase as well it may be much too much. So I reeled it back in and stuck to only painting the spindles and banister.
After our initial walk-through I obsessed over the listing images (that's standard fare for us) and knew that a doorway would need to be put in on the other side of the fireplace to balance the room. Because while this room was being used as the living room I wanted it to be the dining room. And making it easy to carry serving dishes from the kitchen to the dining table was paramount. Also paramount, was turning the fireplace from an eyesore into a centerpiece. The paint color absolutely helped. I tried out two other colors before realizing this was the one and once I did I used it on the hutch doors, the stairs, and the cabinets along the far wall of the kitchen.
I realize my dining table doesn't do it justice because this room is big and a much bigger table could certainly fit with ample room to move around it. Again, another home we've created that I do not get to host a family gathering in. I wish buyers would send me pictures around the holidays so I could see how they fill up the space with family and food. I did, for the first time on this house, bring my girlfriends to have a meal (takeout) at the dining table while giving them the grand reveal of the renovation. So it feels a little like I got the host a thing there and I guess that's enough.
~ Stephanie
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