It's a Danged Zoo

We keep the other elephant we've been ignoring in the dining room. You'll find it just past the swinging door, in desperate need of refinishing, next to the fridge.

This room has some great features, such as this corner china cabinet and the pocket door leading to the family room. The other door on the left leads to the back stairs. You'll also notice another door behind it that also leads to those stairs from the family room.

So far, we haven't done much of anything with this room other than replace the lighting fixtures. The wallpaper, while I would have loved it in the 80s, is getting tired. So tired in fact you can see that it's trying to peel itself off and fling itself on the floor so it can lay down. I'll be doing the humane thing and putting it out of its misery soon.

Before:After:
Note the odd placement of the window. According to the previous owners there was yet another door to left of it leading to the back porch. You can see through the door on the left there is also one in the kitchen. There was also a door to the right of the window leading to the basement steps. I'm telling ya, the builders must have gotten one heck of a deal at a door sale.

They took the extra doors out so they could install the original kitchen cabinets here to use as a buffet. They're great, but they don't go all the way across the room. That and the fact that the window now seems out of place drives me bonkers. I'm kinda particular, okay anal, about stuff like that. It seems out of balance and I notice it on a daily basis. So this cabinet is coming out and will be located in the new mudroom.


Of course it's not just that simple. This is the only room, other than the laundry room and the upstairs bath, that has vinyl flooring. There's hardwood under there just like in the rest of the house. Of course they installed the vinyl after the cabinet so once it's removed, so goes the vinyl. Which wouldn't be a bad thing and we probably would have already taken on that project, but the previous owners also informed us that there once was a bathroom in this room. A bathroom with some yucky tile that was put down with a tar like substance. So there's tar on the wood floor. This is not going to be an easy project. And if we're going to go to all that trouble, we still need to figure out something about that darned out of balance window. The simple solution would be to add another window.

The other major question though is, should we open up that wall between the kitchen and the dining room? We wouldn't be able to get rid of it completely or my sewing machine upstairs would end up landing in the sink. But we could open it up considerably and make it look just like the other pocket doors in the house. We'd have to move the corner china cabinet to the opposite corner. Then move the current window over to the left. And make one heck of a mess in the process.

For the most part, the way we live on a day to day basis there's not much need to open it up. We have breakfast and lunch in the kitchen and dinner in the dining room. But when we entertain, which doesn't happen all that often since I live with two anti-social men, the dining room seems really, really cramped. Any more than six people and it's elbow to elbow. Not to mention that the rooms just seem all chopped up in comparison to all the modern homes with that "great room" concept.

So do we leave the wall and the cool old swinging door? Or do we yank it out and open up the rooms? And THAT my friends is why I haven't done a darn thing to my dining room yet. I'd have to make a decision.

What do you think?