Dining Room Sneak Peek

 

Thanks everyone for your comments on my last post.  I am struggling to keep up with work demands, so I'm way behind on replying to emails and comments, I apologize for that.

Normally I like to wait and show you a room once it is all finished, but I just couldn't wait this time.  I'm in love with a piece of furniture I just got, and I think I might need a 12 step program for it!  Sorry for the quick and dirty pictures, but I wanted to show it off right away.  See that bolt in the photo above?  It had me at hello, and it was one of the reasons I bought this piece, sight unseen from my friend Caroline.

I met Caroline, and her husband Jon-Paul, when I did a photo shoot for Romantic Country Magazine at one of their amazing barn sales in 2010.  Through their business, Eskter Antiques, they import wonderful things from around the world and then sell them at their gorgeous property outside of Leesburg, Virginia during the barn sales they host several times a year.

Caroline is a native of the Netherlands, and her taste is beyond compare.  The home she and her husband share with their two beautiful daughters has been photographed for magazines, and has appeared in Fifi's wonderful book Romantic Prairie Style, and will also be in Fifi's new cookbook!

So I know that when Caroline posts photos of an upcoming sale, I will always find something to fall in love with.  Usually I just drool at her photos because I don't have room for some of her pieces, or I'm just not in the market for something new, but in December I lucked out!  Not only was I in the market for a new dining room cabinet to hold all of my china and crystal, but there, staring out from her website, was the cabinet that had been living inside my head, the one I'd been waiting for.  I knew right then and there that it was time to sell my grandparent's dark furniture and get what my heart was longing for.

So I sent Caroline an email, and then we had a few phone conversations, and I decided to just buy the cabinet without driving the 2 1/2 hours to see it.  It had cremone bolts for heaven's sake, how could it not be beautiful, I thought!  And it was nearly twice as wide and way taller than my old china cabinet, so that meant that the special stemware and dishes that had been living in boxes for 4 years would now finally have a home.  If I ever move or add on, I will make sure that every inch of space is devoted to storage, because this house is lacking in it, well at least for a plate addict like me!
 

My only hold back about the cabinet was that it looked a little too white in the photos, and in my head my ideal cabinet looked like an old piece of driftwood.  Then last Saturday, when Jon-Paul delivered the cabinet, my jaw just about hit the floor.  When I walked outside to see it in the back of his truck, it was not white, but a beautiful driftwood color, woohoo, luck be a lady tonight!  I was thrilled that it wasn't white, even though I would have been perfectly happy with something more white.  

Because Caroline imports much of what she sells, she often only gets one or two of any particular item and she may or may not be able to get more.  When I first contacted her about this cabinet there were 3 other people clamoring to own it, but one by one they couldn't take it.  So my first bit of luck was in being the one who got to buy it, and then when it was the color I wanted, had the right dimensions, and was in my price range, well I was over the moon happy!

The other good news is that I've sold my grandparent's table and chairs, which you see pictured, to a lovely young couple who contacted me through Craigslist.  Yay for no one killing us when they came to look at it!  They will be picking it up on Saturday, and I feel certain it will have a happy home.  When the guy came to look at it last night we ended up chatting for almost 2 hours, gotta love it when you like the people who buy your stuff!

So there will be some more rearranging around this place over the weekend.  I'll be in full on fluff mode until everything is the way I've been envisioning it in my head since we moved in here over 4 years ago.  I just love it when a plan comes together, and apparently patience really is a virtue!

I'll will be posting much better pictures of the finished room, when it is actually finished, and showing you another special item I got from Caroline and Jon-Paul.  And in case you are in love with this cabinet too, I happen to know that Caroline will be getting at least one more, most likely sometime in January, so if you are interested, you can contact her by clicking HERE.  You can tell her you want the special Kat Kabinet...I'm kidding people! ;-)

And I will be linking to Furniture Feature Friday with Miss Mustard Seed, because for the first time in a really long time, I have a new piece of furniture....YAY!

Old Favorites

I was over at Miss Mustard Seed and saw that she has a great feature on furniture each Friday!  You can post about furniture projects and makeovers, furniture finds, favorite furniture, and even furniture you've been dreaming about.

I'm mid way through a few furniture projects, including painting my old green bucket bench with a fresh, crisp coat of Benjamin Moore Simply White, one of my favorite colors.  My entire kitchen is this color, and all of the new trim in our house is as well.  I also need to apply the crown moulding to the cabinet my father made years ago, that we just got around to assembling and painting black.  The black cabinet has really cute knobs that I bought on a whim on clearance from Anthropologie.  I had thought I might use them in our kitchen when we remodeled it, but then decided against it, so tucked them away for a future project and the black cabinet seemed like the perfect fit for them.

More on these projects at a later date.

So for today's Furniture Feature Friday, I decided I would post about some of my favorite pieces.  I have lots of favorite furniture, some we purchased, others we inherited, and some beloved pieces that were handmade for me so it was difficult to choose, but the two I did pick are truly two of my favorite pieces!  They were both purchased items, and both were bought over 15 years ago. 

The dough box was purchased probably 20 years ago...wow could it have been that long ago?!  We had just purchased our first house and didn't have two nickels to rub together, but my wise mother convinced me to purchase it on layaway from a local antique store, saying that I would regret it if I didn't.  She was right of course, and she also probably fixed us dinner a lot over the next month to help me save on groceries so that I could afford to pay it off and bring it home.  She was like that!

Here it is 20 years and three homes later, and I still love it as much today as I did the day I first saw it.  The dovetailed box and peg constructed legs, all made from pine, have a patina that makes my heart sing.  I often wonder where it was made, maybe by a loving husband or father like so many of my furniture pieces?  Or what delicious breads, biscuits, and rolls were left to rise within it's confines.

I love its well worn character, the nicks and gouges, the cracks and blemishes which all add to its appeal.

Another one of my favorite pieces came from a small shop on Solomon's Island, that is no longer in business.  It was a great store in an old house with steep stairs and treasures tucked in every room.  I popped in one day and as soon as I saw this I just had to have it!  The kids were older, we had a little more money and the foyer in our "then" house was begging for this table!

It's made from an old house shutter and painted a warm mustard yellow.  This color went better in our old house, but I just can't bring myself to paint over it even though I suspect it's not the original color.  It now sits in the hallway leading to our bedrooms and I even swept up the "tufties" of dog hair that the dogs like to leave for me each and every day, that were under it this morning!

I love the old hardware and the aged finish of the paint.  It's funny, every person who worked on our house from the plumbers to the flooring guys all commented on this table and how much they liked it.  I have to agree, it is a special piece that we will certainly pass down.

For more great furniture or to post your own great pieces, head over to Miss Mustard Seed for Furniture Feature Friday!