Welcome To My Home!- The Family Room & Dining Area

Good afternoon, my friends!  As promised, and now that I am **just** about done with my deep autumn cleaning, today I thought I would take you on a little tour of our family room and dining area, and we will begin with the first thing you see when you walk inside the door.  Since our house is relatively small, I have done my best to make this small space welcoming. This wall is the dividing wall between the kitchen/dining area  and the family room. The first thing you may notice is the small bookcase which holds a few antique books (I am always on the look for old books with red and green covers), and the bottom shelf holds part of my collection of Gooseberry Patch cookbooks. The chalk board is a treasure I picked up last year at a yard sale.  I typically write something seasonal on it, but that is one thing I haven't got around to yet.  And then the black divider is a piece we found at the dump.  It was a very ugly brown, but I knew the minute I saw it exactly what I would do with it!  There are few things a little black paint and some distressing can't fix for me.  The little pine tree and white pumpkin are sitting on a small black stool which I had to cut out to size my images right. And speaking of the pine tree, something you should know it that our decorating theme is mostly salt box houses and pine trees, kind of a cabiny feel, and so we keep a number of lit trees up year round, and when Christmas rolls around we decorate them, so yes, I suppose we are "those people" who keep their tree up year round, but they are really only Christmas trees once a year, at least, that's the way we see it.

And now if you will turn to the right you will in fact, see the first of those trees I mentioned.  The door you see is technically the front door, but we don't use it as we prefer the side door off of the covered porch, so this door stays locked year round. It made for the perfect spot to put our Christmas tree the first year we were here and, well, then we just never took it down. The old ladder is one we picked up at a yard sale. I have fun decorating it with seasonal decorations, and then to the right of that you can just see the entertainment center and bookshelves. My husband built these pieces for me several years ago and I still love them! The white rug you see is something I am hoping to replace. There was a propane stove on the wall where the entertainment center is now and we didn't care for it so we took it out. It sat on a tile foundation, and when we took the stove out, the tile came with it. We did have some matching carpet remnants, so we put that down first, but it sinks in just a little in that area, so I ended up covering it up with this rug.  I don't mind needing a rug, I would just prefer something that isn't quite as contrasting, but for now, it works.

This is the view of the family room as you come into the house, looking down the hall where the bathroom and two bedrooms are. We got this furniture set at ReStore, which benefits Habitat for Humanity. The cushions were blue and burgundy, kind of a southwestern pattern, but we had them professionally recovered in buffalo check. They have held up so well over the years and I still love them! The recliner is new to us, we picked it up from Facebook Marketplace. The book shelf by the recliner houses all my devotional and daily reading books, found at a yard sale a few years ago for $3.

To the right of the recliner is one of the few walls in our home that didn't get painted. We left the hallway cream to keep it from being too dark, but this wall is technically part of the family room. The shelves you see were there when we bought the house and match perfectly with our furniture. Most of the items on these shelves stay the same year round and I just add seasonal touches.  The antique sewing machine belonged to my husband's mother and is a treasured piece. My husband's father worked for Singer for many years, so it's a little nod to our family history. And then, as you can see, we have two small trees in this corner, as well.

This is the view of the entertainment center and bookshelves from the other end of the room. You can just see a little bit of my pot bellied stove, which belonged to my mother. It's probably my favorite piece. I like to keep a candle lit inside of it, especially in autumn and winter to give the appearance of a glowing warm fire.

And then, if you turn to the right we will move into the dining area. This is a better view of the dividing wall which I extended a little with the black room divider. Also just on the other side of the chair you can see our antique radio. We love adding unique piece to our decor, and this was our anniversary present to each other last year. We keep a blue tooth speaker on top and often listen to oldies from the 40's, 50's and 60's.

On the left side of the dining room we have this hutch.  My husband built this piece, as well which we originally used as a pantry in a house where we had very little cabinet space.  Now it holds all of my dishes, everyday and seasonal.  The red dishes you see on the table are ones I use in September each year. I still have some seasonal touches to add to this tablescape. The fan is sitting on top of a little heater. I got it at a yard sale last year and painted it, and then to the right of that is a little chest I also got at a yard sale for all of $20.00. It holds my table linens and a some seasonal decorations. My original plan was to strip it and paint it black, and I may still do that, but in some of the places where it is scratched you can see that the original wood color looks like it might be pretty, so I may just leave it natural. That is a project I hope to have completed by the end of the year. Also, you can just see to the left of the black cabinet the antique telephone. This was our anniversary present to each other this year, albeit a bit early, but we couldn't let this one pass us up. We just hung it earlier this week and I just love it!

Here is a better view of the white hutch and the little heater. The other side of the dining room opens up into the kitchen, which I posted about here, if you missed it. 

At the far end of the dining room there is a door that leads out to the back yard and a window. I just finished the second panel of these curtains and got them hung this week. They are double sided, a pretty rusty red pattern on one side and black and tan check on the other (see below), but when the sun shines through they look rust.  The old churn was a gift from a very dear friend of mine, and another piece I treasure, and once again, another tree! I warned you we had several! The little black bin holds potatoes on top, onions in the middle, and part of our vast array of coffee cups in the bottom. We have a problem when it comes to coffee cups, I've added two more in the past two weeks!

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of our family room and dining area.  I completed all the deep cleaning I wanted to do in the house this past week, but I still have my office/craft room and the cellar to do.  They are both rooms that are not accessible from the main part of the house, and my office/craft room is not air conditioned, so it will be a project for a cooler day!  The only room I haven't shown is the bathroom, so I'll try to get that posted next week. I won't be posting the bedrooms as ours is still a work in progress, and I won't post my daughter's bedroom to respect her privacy.

Until then . . .

❊