Why does a dining room have to be the place where your family eats or a warehouse for a duplicate of what you might already have in your kitchen?
Why do the living room and the family room have to compete for your family’s attention?
Why can’t an unused bedroom be a closet or dressing room or both?
So you’ve guessed that I’m at it again. Here’s the new plan.
My stepdaughter just bought her first place and I enjoyed giving her our dining room furniture, our basement TV couch, and a dresser that we reinvented in to an office credenza. After studying the empty dining room for several weeks my husband realized that his horseshoe shaped oak desk could “temporarily” live in the dining room so I could begin converting his study into a closet/dressing room.
Once we got the desk downstairs, it seemed to belong in the space. I had often thought that our dining room would make a cozy library/ den and now it was beginning to take shape in my mind.
But where would we dine? Our kitchen table is big enough, an 81 inch long masterpiece handcrafted by an Amish carpenter who used wood from the underside of an old barn for the top. He added new legs and a “bowtie” to cover a wood knot on the top, which gives the table so much character. Purchased from Village Reproductions and Antiques on Sullyfield Circle in Chantilly, VA 10 years ago for $1000 it will definitely be a prized possession for generations.
I have always wished I could live in an historic home complete with working fireplace in the kitchen. If I move the kitchen table into our family room, it will be parallel to the fireplace that has a wood stove insert installed in it. I’ve done that temporarily for special occasions and loved the look. With a soaring 22 foot ceiling, I’m easily transported in my mind to a Jacobean Great Room, which is my favorite English décor. Of course, the leather loveseat and ottoman could go to the basement TV room.
Knowing these two room reinventions would be incomplete without other complimentary furniture, I have resisted doing anything but fantasizing about them. Until this week.
My favorite, discount furniture store is Warehouse Furniture Showrooms, 5641 General Washington Dr., Suite K, Alexandria, VA 703-256-2497. I visited to see if the colonial hutch I’ve imagined in my fantasy dining room was still in the warehouse. Not only was it there but signs proclaimed an unannounced special for a week of spring-cleaning. That meant an additional 20 % off was available on all merchandise “upstairs” which is exactly where this beauty was. Colonial red and natural pine, it has pewter hardware, four shelves above the buffet bottom which has drawers and four roomy cupboards underneath. With built-in plate racks on each open shelf, I can finally display my lovely china or my eclectic collection of 31 bone china teacups and saucers inherited from my mom and Aunt Sarah. Normally reduced $600 from retail, it was now reduced by almost another $300. How could I turn this down? I’d visualized it in my home for months.
Still upstairs in the warehouse I noticed the beautifully crafted bookshelves, which would complete the upscale study I was creating for my husband in the old dining room. They were also 20 % off so for about $1000 I would get 99 inches of bookcases. A lovely mahogany hand rubbed finish, they would go well with the library table that was now just a resting-place for plants and old books in the family room.
The only problem left was to adjust my husband’s desk, a medium oak finish, to go with the mahogany. An additional $4.68 spent at Sears got me a mahogany oil-based wood stain which I have been rubbing onto the desk to turn the brown/yellow oak look into a brown/red mahogany look. After applying two coats, it looks like I will succeed.
A new dining room set would have cost thousands more than I have spent to recreate a study and dining room. I’ve used what I had and added one key piece to each room to enhance the look.
People exclaim all the time “Your husband must really love you.” They are implying that I am so much more low maintenance than most wives.
I don’t call $2000 low maintenance. But it sure beats $10,000.
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