Monday, January 23, 2017

The Dining Room

What you are about to see is semi-obscene.



This is it. This is the money maker. The living room rolls directly back into this nightmare area. Now the wood paneling wouldn't be so much of an issue - it sort of reminds me of the house I grew up in - but the frankly rude and sordid effort to stain plywood to match the paneling is foul. Another short critique of light kits on fans - it looks a little like a melted hershey's kiss or a boob on a woman horizontally reclined. Why do I say these things? Why do I put this crap on the internet? I am a miserable exhibitionist who both craves and reviles attention.

I wish I had a picture of the wall we are going to tear down: a cuckoo clock evidently lived on that wall for 35 years. The stain on the paneling behind where it hung is a perfect ghost: so obvious that I immediately knew what it was.

Back to this look:


Central AC, so no more window unit, and we are taking out that fan no matter what the cost and adding a chandelier and some LEDs. I have ruminated for a long time and I have settled on the following:


My pal texted me a photo of it in a showroom somewhere and I have to have it. I might even do the "brown" version of this puff. I think it might be cute to contrast it since the walls and floors will be white.




Look at it! So cute! I can't! Full disclosure: I hate chandeliers... and this is a chandelier cheat. It is not a chandelier. But my cats are going to freak out.


GIVE IT A CEILING MEDALLION! Y'all. Y'aaalllllll.

So we're going to paint the paneling the same as ceiling and floors in the living room, just to kind of make it go away (😩 ). As previously reported, the most important change we're making is knocking out the wall that separates the dining from the living room, hopefully accomplishing some kind of glorious transition like this one:


I will be demoing most of the storage in this house because it is ghastly and because it may lead to a nightmare narnia (more on this later). This leaves me in a bit of a lurch for storing things like my purple christmas tree. So take a look at this sad space again: the cabinets that separate the kitchen from the dining have gotta go (sorry mom), but I'm thinking about a built-in along the left wall. However, in order to do that, I have to center the windows.


The windows are delightfully centered to... nothing. #blessthismess      So I'm going to tear them the hell out. I would literally rather live with a gaping hole than these slightly off-center windows. I could even almost understand it if it was necessary for the aesthetic of the exterior... but the exterior blows, guys. I would love to experience the mind of this architect, even for a moment, just to know what pure chaos feels like.

All that to say, I'm putting in french doors instead to maximize the light coming in since this is a southern-facing window and the cave of my living room needs all the help it can get.



And example of french doors! Which will be centered to the space! I daresay my back porch will never look this charming (is that a well-groomed dog?), but all the pins that show you the interior of french doors* were the visual equivalent to droopy flowers.

This revelation is going to affect the back yard space - right now there is a door to the back yard in the kitchen that's in the way of optimal cabinetry. Hopefully we can take him out and throw a window there instead. Then the backyard will need some type of patio space. 

This is a public service announcement regarding backyard choices: I HATE pergolas... what the fuck is the point of a pergola. They don't have tops so there's no shade or cover from rain. What is the point of this structure?????????? There are many people related to pergolas who must be stopped: the dumbasses who build them all over HGTV, the idiots who are thrilled to have them, people who then go out and build them (!!!), people who believe they are enjoying time in a pergola (!!!!!) WHEN IN FACT they cannot be enjoying time in a Pergola because there is no "in" a pergola. Do not suggest a pergola to me ever for any reason.

I'm hoping for some sort of screened-in porch in the back but since the front of the house has an overhang that makes the single window pretty ineffectual I feel like the french doors are meant to let some light in and I don't want to cock that up by creating another dreary porch. I maybe considered a pergola for half a moment and then realized I was possibly descending into madness.



Back to the built-in seating to the dining area - I love this built-in with a tulip table and a hyde rug. In fact this whole house is pretty gorgeous - definitely check it out.

I think if we make a cushion but leave a hinge in the top so that it opens, I'll have almost 24 square feet of storage. Screw the closets! Get rid of them all!

Dining out, fools.

*There were lots of nice pins of french doors that I could not afford. I can afford these.

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