more tour goods: dining room and kitchen

here are some more pictures of my parents house from the home tour back in october. you can read about it here, here and here. i must admit, my camera is way too fancy for my knowledge and experience as a photographer; i barely know how to take it off of "auto". some of these photos are taken at night while some are in daylight. i feel the need to post them all since, in my opinion, they each have a different "mood" about them. enjoy!

dining room:

the table and chairs were my great-grandparent's. their house was right down the street from this house.

the painting on the left was done by my late grandmother.

my mom picked up the buffet for around $75, i believe??? crazy considering i've been looking for one for my dining room and where i live i am hard pressed to find a decent one under $400.00.

the white circles you see in the floors are the vents for the air conditioning. when i grew up in this house our "air conditioning" was a box fan in an open window. a few years ago my parents bit the bullet and put in central air. since this home doesn't have air ducts they had to install a system of tubes. the tubes run through the walls, floors, ceilings...pretty much wherever they could fit them. some of the holes are in the walls but most are in the floor. can you imagine installing something like that? from what i hear it was quite a challenge.

they don't make crown molding like they used to...

if i remember correctly, we've gotten up to 16 people at this table in the past. this is our spot for thanksgiving, christmas eve and easter meals. many many memories in this room.

pantry:

this pantry connects the dining room to the kitchen. it's a wonderful space with tons of storage. i would give anything to have a space like this in my home. these are original cabinets and hardware. the wood floor is brand new.

i love the wood bowl filled with cookie cutters.

kitchen:

about fifteen or so years ago my parents completely gutted and remodeled this kitchen. they took out a wall and rearranged everything. during this recent re-do, they repainted the walls, changed the cabinet hardware to chrome and installed a new wood floor.

on the very right of this photo you can see some brass handles sticking out. (i can't believe i didn't take a better picture of this.) this is an old refrigerator that is original to the house. it has four compartments with wood doors and still works! my parents use is to store beer, soda and water.

the florist who decorated for the tour did a candy theme in the kitchen. it was really cute.

this is one of my favorite things that the florist did in the whole house. she took an apothecary jar that she purchased at pier one, filled it with marshmallows, added a scarf and hat and voila! a snowman! isn't he just adorable?

here you see a wreath that the florist did adorned with chocolate suckers, so cute! makes me crave chocolate.

a few pieces of my mom's huge quimper pottery collection.

my brother is amazingly talented. this is one of his watercolors. it's one of my favorite paintings of his. there are actually four apples. (not sure why i didn't take more/better pictures of this part of the kitchen. the reflections on the painting are horrible.)

i hope you are having a wonderful december!  hopefully i will get the rest of the first floor pictures posted soon!

home tour goods: more pictures...finally!

i feel like it has taken me forever to get these posted! here are some more pictures i took of my parent's home. i will post more later. remember how i said i took a bazillion pictures? i'm going to have to split them up. enjoy!

exterior front

front porch

the pine tree that you see at the corner of the house was the tree we had as our first christmas tree the year we moved into the house, 27 years ago. it was only a few feet tall then. now it's almost as tall as the house.

back

back porch

foyer

my grandfather made me this dollhouse when i was 7. this landing was one of my favorite places to play as a child.

five of my parent's eight grandchildren

this chandelier came out of my brother and sister-in-law's first home. i was visiting many years ago and found it laying in their basement. i snagged it up and have been hording it for years. when my mom mentioned that she wanted something new for their foyer i knew it would be perfect; i thought their foyer could use a little bling. she cleaned up the brass and bought $40 worth of crystals and voila! isn't it pretty?

front stairs and two of my grandmother's paintings

my grandmother's self portrait

my grandmother's version of a mary cassatt painting

my parents the day after the tour- relieved and proud.

i went a little overboard with pictures of the living room. i really wish i had some better "before" pictures. here are two i found from christmas's past. you get the idea; tan wallpaper, tan carpet, white drapes, etc. you can see the arms of the ladder back chairs and love seat that are now slip covered. the transformation of this room is probably the most dramatic in the whole house.

christmas 2007

christmas 2006

christmas 2009
(a bit different eh?)

note to self:

1. if you are going to buy new christmas tree lights, buy enough for the whole tree. not all led lights are created equal.

2. once the tree is completely decorated there is no turning back to re-do said lights.

(my dad typically puts the lights on my parent's tree and decorates it. he does it every year and is really good at it. this year he bought some new led lights to go with last years led lights. however, he didn't realize the new ones were different shades of color -with a sort of neon blue hue- until it was way too late. as you can imagine, with thousands of people about to tour the home, my mom and i were going nuts, crazy nuts! it took all of our strength not to start dismantling the tree to fix it. what's a wife and daughter to do? we just didn't have the heart to re-do it or complain about all of his hard work. after all...he got it done, right?)

oh, how i wish you could've seen this mantle in person! these pictures simply do not do it justice. before the tour my mom sent me some pictures of the unfinished room. i remember telling her that i really hoped the florist was going to use a lot of white on the mantle to balance out the stark white of the slipcovers. the florist and i must have been on the same page! i think it is just stunning.

i just love love love the back of the ethan allen ladder back chairs. 

my mom bought the round table for $19.00 and painted it blue.

my mom made the black pillows out of old needlepoint that she's been collecting over the years. i found the yellow pillows at tj maxx. (two for $19.00, with down inserts...can't beat that!) when i bought them i originally intended on using them in another room...they ended up working perfectly here pulling gold tones out of the rug and adding color to the sofa.

(no the lamp shade is not purple. it's black. for some reason it photographed really poorly.)

the plaid chair was my great-grandmother's. my mom had it reupholstered in the same wool tartan as the drapes in the family room. the wreath is beechwood florals.

i embroidered the R for the lumbar pillows at home and finished making the pillows the night before the tour.

go here to learn about the slipcovers and the fa-bu-lous woman who made them!