My House: Dining Room Progress

For the past 11 months we've had the front part of our East Coast house and the entire 2nd floor undergoing an extensive renovation.  The reno area consists of a living room, dining room, hallway/staircase, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom - in total less than 1000 s.f.  Its been 11 months and this new work is still not finished.  I expected we'd  have the entire house reno completed by now but reality is I'm dealing with Atlantic time here. Nothing happens quickly.  This first phase of renos is complete enough now that we've moved into the new area and its a huge relief to have the extra room and to have the tools and dust and daily trades gone.   

Its fitting that the very first room we used in the new part of the house was the Dining Room (even before the bedrooms).  What better way to christen the new space than a special dinner with family, our very first house guests.   I never imaged 3 months previous when we planned their visit that w'ed be scrambling to get the new space livable by July 1st.   It was a close call,  I'll be honest, new beds arrived for the bedrooms on Thursday, the plumber arrived on Friday to install the bahtroom fixtures, boxes were being upacked on Saturday and our guests arrived on Sunday.  I had hotel rooms reserved just in case but miraculously we didn't need them.   Shortly after they arrived we gathered in our "new" dining room for a big dinner.  To give you an idea of how far this room has come, here's a little before and after along with a peek at some of the progress.

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After (same view as "Before" photo)

The only redeeming feature about this room "before" was that it was a decent size.   Fake wood panelling, acoustical tile ceiling (its everywhere here), nasty pet stained carpet, mis-matched trim work - it all had to go.  With a house this old a coat of paint and a steam clean isn't nearly enough to bring the space up to todays standards.  Behind the walls and above the tile ceiling your likely to find no insulation, mould, loads of mouse droppings, critter nests, faulty wiring and water damage.  We found all of that and more.  The only way you could move forward with this interior was to go backwards first.




On the floor we stripped back a layer of carpet, a layer of vinyl and a particle board subfloor to reveal what I had suspected (and desperately hoped) was there. Original solid wood wide plank floor boards, complete with a solid wood subfloor beneath.  I was ecstatic when we uncovered these and that they were throughout the entire house.

These are what the floors looked like after stripping off layers of paint. 

The next most exciting discovery was uncovering these original timber ceiling joists in the living and dining rooms.  Just like the wood floors, these beauties hadn't seen the light of day in a looooong time and I had no intention of covering them up again.

Almost there,,,many months later here's the dining room just after the drywallers finished.  We reframed all the exterior walls, added insulation, new drywall and new wood windows and all new trim work.  The wood ceiling beams were left bare and new drywall was seamlessly fitted around them.

Below is a sneak peek of what the dining room looked like the day we used it for the first time with our guests, I literally took the building permit out of the window seconds before these photos were taken.   The room was far from finished; there are no light fixtures, no electrical cover plates, no vent covers and barely any furniture.  The table and chairs we moved into the room are completely temporary but work for now - it will ALL be replaced in the near future.  The fact that the room isn't complete and is a long way from where I want it to be, would never stop me from making use of it now as best I can.

This is how the table looked while I was half way thru setting it for our first dinner.  I filled the bottoms of the hurricane lanterns with sand from the beach and added wild daisies and ferns that I picked from the side of our road (there's no flower shop to run to).  In case you're wondering what was on the menu for this inaugural dinner - we had a lobster feed of course. : )

So that's a sneak peek of the new construction in the dining room, the furnishings and artwork are another story all together.  Stay tuned for sneak peeks of the other "new" rooms which I'll be posting soon.  You can also check out some before photos of the exterior on my first post about the property here and one other post on some of the demo progress here.

Room Design and all Photos by:  Carol Reed

Brian's Condo - Dining Room Update

The design concept for the dining room was created earlier in December and all the items except for the light fixture were sourced and purchased before the holidays (record timing!).  Its a small space which can't accommodate a lot of furniture so the the budget allocated for this area was tiny but yet I still wanted it to have big style.   Now I have to admit the dining area is not a space that's of much importance to Brian, he's not intending to throw dinner parties or be doing a lot of entertaining, nonetheless, some sort of table and chair configuration would be practical for the occassional dinner guest or weekday meal.  The fact that the LR and DR is one open space means that the dining table will have a perfect view of the large screen wall mounted tv in the LR - this feature seems to have heightened Brian's interest in the dining room design!  Now that I had his interest, I suggested that the best value and style for the money would be to find some vintage chairs and mix them with a simple modern glass table, this is a great solution for both small spaces and small budgets but the best part is it adds some originality and authenticity to the room.

My biggest find was scoring a set of 4 danish modern dining chairs the Sunday before Christmas.  The chairs had just arrived in the shop less than an hour before I stopped in and as soon as I laid eyes on them, I had to have them and they were bought on the spot (sorry to the guy who had been on a wait list for a year, but he was of the country for 3 weeks and I was there with cash in hand!).  Two days earlier I had found an amazing deal on an interesting chrome and glass table that was just the size we needed and in-stock, so suddenly with this set of chairs now purchased the dining room was just about done and we didn't have to special order any of it - another great advantage to buying vintage pieces.

This past Thursday was a big delivery day at the condo project with several key pieces arriving.  In addition to the mattress set, the sofa, the front hall bench, a credenza and the dining table,,,,,I also had to deliver the newly recovered vintage teak dining chairs....which was not so easy.  I'm crazy for these chairs and I grew quite attached to them over the past couple of weeks, honestly I didn't want to give them up, it was like suffering thru a bit of separation anxiety!

The chairs were in absolutely perfect condition, the wood is beautiful and the lines of the chair are so organic and sculptural looking.  For only $100 a chair, I don't think you can beat the quality and design.  With some new fabric on the seats, they'd take on a new modern look.  I picked out a charcoal coloured vevlet that I think is a beautiful compliment to the caramel wood tones.

An indication that the chairs were all made at the same time by the same mfg is the wood grain, on these chairs you can see the same knot in the wood, in the exact same place on each chair.  This also speaks to the quality of the pieces.

Here you can see the continuous wood grain on all the chair backs and not a single exposed fastener or screw anywhere on the chair.

The underside of the chair had a muslin type backing on and when it was removed we found the original mfg's label.

I was thrilled to see the Schionning & Elgaard for Randers label.  These chairs would have been made sometime between 1957 and 1960.

Thursday evening at Brian's condo,,,,,not quite ready for dinner.

As I mentioned above, quite a few furniture items were delivered on Thursday including the dining table.  Unfortunately, I didn't hire delivery AND installation for the table thinking that it would be a fairly simple DIY project for the new homeowner!!  So when Brian arrived we opened up the box and pulled out the instructions, anxious to whip this thing together and see the new table and chairs complete.  Immediately we were both relieved to see that no tools were required, because he doesn't own any!  A dozen fasteners and an allen key were all that was required so we sat down and attempted to piece it together..........every which way we could imagine,,,nothing worked, after 2 hours of frustration, we gave up.  The instructions were useless, there were only 3 steps (ha!) but step 1 looked like a diagram of the solar system with no explanation.  Trying to figure out the base configuration (which kind of resembles the eiffel tower) was like trying to figure out a rubic's cube.  I started to understand why the table had been on sale and concluded at that point that even if it had been free,,,,,It wasn't worth the price.  We agreed to call it quits for the day,,,,,but Brian vows to return on the weekend to try and figure it out.  I hope he brings beer.

Test strip of digital print on canvas.

Since there's no room for a sideboard or console in the dining area I wanted to do something special on the wall to give the space some impact,,,so it wouldn't just be a table and 4 chairs in front of a blank wall.  Original paintings or artwork of a substantial size is out of our budget range so I opted for original photography in this case.  While its not cheap, it is less expensive than a large painted canvas and offers unlimited subject matter of your choice and can even be from your own photo collection.   For this space I'm having a black & white image of a city scene enlarged and printed on a huge canvas, this will provide a great backdrop for both the dining and living area and create a modern urban vibe.  A photographic scene like this at this scale adds a lot of depth and creates a great 'view'.   I sent a photo to Kevin at Elevator Digital and he's printing it on archival quality canvas and wrapping it around a stretcher frame.   I stopped in yesterday to approve a test strip - it looks incredible, I can't WAIT to see this when its ready next week.

West Elm Globe Pendant

The last element of the dining room that remains outstanding is the light fixture.  I LOVE this simple globe pendant from West Elm and think its perfect for Brian's place.  Its not overwhelming and it has a bit of an industrial feel to it, especially when a filament style bulb is used - perfect for the modern vintage style we're after.  Unfortunately, everyone else must love this fixture too because West Elm in Toronto is completely out of stock on these and they're on back-order until March.  Uuugghh.  Despite my sulking, pouting, and just plain old begging,,,,they wouldn't even sell me one of their 2 floor displays.  So now I REALLY want this fixture but its going to require some creative resourcefulness.  The West Elm on-line shopping site doesn't ship to canada, not even to the West Elm store here.  I'm currently attempting to purchase it thru that site anyway as I have a US address I can have it shipped to, however,,,,,I'm getting stonewalled in the process.  Even though I have a US ship to address, they can't process the order on-line unless you have a US billing address, in which case you have to call their 1-888 customer service no. to place the order.  No problem I thought,,,,,this will all work out perfectly,,,,,,,until I tried calling the 1-888 number which doesn't work if you live outside of the US.???  The quest continues......

Stay tuned for posts on the front entry and bedroom design concepts and progress coming soon.

For the floor plan and first post on this Condo project go here.

All Photos:   Carol Reed

Rosedale Reno - Dining Room Sneak Peek

Dining Room by Carol Reed Interior Design

I had the opportunity to work on a full scale gut and reno of a Rosedale home for a young family back in 2007/08.  When I became involved in the project the century old house had already been stripped back to the brick and when you stood in the living room on the ground floor you could look up through three stories and see the sky above.   My scope of work involved planning all the interior detailing (mouldings, staircases, doorways etc.), lighting layout, designing the fireplaces and builtins, selecting all the interior finishes, specifying all the lighting, hardware, window coverings, and finally, sourcing a few key furniture pieces.   

Although its been more than a year and half since they've moved in and the interior construction was completed, there's still a lot of finishing touches to be added but these things will evolve over time as the family grows.  Frankly, after the lengthy and all consuming process of planning, building, and moving into the house, my clients have  simply been enjoying living in it and focusing on their busy day to day lives raising their two young daughters.  Slowly the rooms are coming to completion with the addition of artwork and accessories that the homeowners have been accumulating since they moved in but with so many rooms, it continues to be a work in progress.

I'll post more detail about this renovation project along with more after photos in the near future.  I visited their home this week and had the opportunity to take some up-dated photos, the small glimpse of the dining room above is one of my favorites.   This room will be getting a lot of use in the upcoming months and in just a couple of weeks I know it will be decked out for the holidays in silver, blue and green........but in the meantime,,,

Happy Thanksgiving!

Photo:   Carol Reed