Our Dining Room

For years, while we were renovating this very old house of ours, we went without a dining room. When we had our first child, our daughter, the space served as her nursery. Later it became the playroom for all three of our kids. It was right off the kitchen, which was where I spent almost all my time, so I could keep an eye on the kids while I prepared meals, made, bread, and did all my crafty things!

Eventually, we got around to making it into a dining room, and it's turned out to be one of my favorite rooms! It's in a tie with our living room, which has an over-sized stone fireplace. I might get around to taking some pictures of that room one day, too.

This is one of the sideboards, which started out life as our triple dresser base. I like the 'beat-up' look in furniture. My older brother used to call me the Queen of "Chip n' Dent," because nothing in our home is in pristine condition!

I love doll furniture and use the miniture hutch to store candles. I had to have the old crockery pot when I saw it in a local antique shop, because it has a perfect imprint of the potter's hand in the glaze. I'm sure he cursed when he did it, but it makes it more special in my eyes!

This is a view looking toward the cellar door and hallway. The sign was made by our daughter and me from the raised panel of an old door. 'Smoky Hollow' was the name given to our little area of town a long time ago. There's an abandoned railroad bed that follows along the other side of the river which borders our property. When the coal-fired trains were running, their smoke would hang in our little valley, thus the name.

 

Another view of the sign. The door to the right of the plant stand is a built-in cupboard which stores all our dishes, glasses and linens. You can see more of my doll furniture collection on the tea cart and on the shelf above it.

The original floor was wide painted pine boards, but the house was so old that it was literally worn through in places and couldn't be saved.  You could see into the cellar!  We replaced it with a light ash hardwood.

The small black rectangle on the floor near the caster of the tea cart is the handle to an old dumb waiter that served as storage for jars of canned fruits and vegetables. It used to be on counter-weights so that it could be easily lifted up from the cellar below. We hope to restore it to functionality one day. It's quite the conversation piece!

Hope you enjoyed this little tour!
Thanks for visiting!
Elaine