The Flip: The Dining Room, Then & Now

January 7, 2011 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 23 Comments

After the great room, the next reveal on the agenda is the dining room!

The Flip: The Dining Room, Then & Now

Here’s how it looked 3 months ago:

The Flip: The Dining Room, Then & Now

Renovating the dining room was a breeze when compared to the great room.  All it needed was new bamboo floors, a column-ectomy and a little layout switcheroo.

The original dining room was in the smaller back room, and the larger room with the bay window was the formal living room.  Since the house already had a ginormous great room we thought the formal living room was a little unnecessary, so we took the opportunity to upgrade the dining room to the larger room so that the future homeowners can host big family dinners and all of that fun stuff (the room can actually accommodate a much larger table but we chose not to use our table’s leaves).  To us, the smaller adjoining room makes more sense as a sitting area or study, but we left the junction box so the future owners can always turn it back into a dining room by moving the chandelier if they’re so inclined.  A win-win in my book.

The Flip: The Dining Room, Then & Now

( The bay window is definitely my favorite part of the dining room, but I can’t take any credit for that since our only contribution to the window was having it cleaned! )

The Flip: The Dining Room, Then & Now

The Flip: The Dining Room, Then & Now

The Flip: The Dining Room, Then & Now

The Flip: The Dining Room, Then & Now

It’s amazing what a little paint and flooring can do!  What do you guys think?

The Flip: Staging Sources for the Great Room

January 5, 2011 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 20 Comments

You guys, I’ve been smiling all day because of your awesome comments about the flip – you sure know how to make a gal feel good!!

Since I got lots of questions about where all the staging goodies came from, I thought I’d fill you in on my sources with links (where possible and while they last).

The Flip: Staging Sources for the Great Room

  • sofa – World Market Emerson sofa
  • area rug – eBay, Braided Jute Area Rug from Natural Home Rugs in 9 x 12
  • coffee table – Overstock, Tray Top Bunching Table Set (came with 2 end tables that you’ll see later used as nightstands in the master bedroom)
  • green pillows – Pier 1
  • paisley pillow – Pier 1, Embroidered Paisley Pillow in Blue
  • throw – Ikea, Stockholm Throw in Beige (I think)
  • wooden bowl – Pottery Barn, wedding present, from my home
  • mercury glass balls (they’re really ornaments – shhhh)- I’m pretty sure I got most these guys from Hobby Lobby a few years ago (with some extras from my mom), from my home

The Flip: Staging Sources for the Great Room

The Flip: Staging Sources for the Great Room

The Flip: Staging Sources for the Great Room

I think that’s everything, but let me know if there’s something I missed, or if you have questions about any of the sources!

The Flip: Kitchen Cabinetry

October 25, 2010 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 10 Comments

Cabinetry is so important – especially in a kitchen, and especially in a kitchen with an open layout.  Not only do the cabinets need to offer lots of storage and functionality for cooking and casual dining, but they need to be beautiful and help create a workable flow throughout the entire kitchen, family room and dining area (some would call it a great room, so let’s go with that).  That’s a tall order!!

The cabinetry at the flip is going to be beautiful but it’s been very tricky to figure out.  We’ve been through about 4 rounds of drawings, and realized at the last minute that we didn’t have enough space between the kitchen and the family room to have bar stools on the back of the island, so then we were scrambling to find another place to put them.

After lots of consideration, here’s a rough rendition of the layout we created for the great room:

(There are upper cabinets on the back elevation of cabinetry but I couldn’t figure out how to put them in the rendering.  Sorry, you’ll have to use your imagination!)

We decided to do a peninsula at the end of the back wall of cabinetry, and I think it’s going to be awesome – much better than our original plan, actually.  By extending the cabinetry towards the French doors and then extending the peninsula out into the space, the room will feel more balanced whereas before everything was skewed towards the fireplace wall.

We’ve been agonizing over where to place pendants – over the island or over the peninsula?  I think we’ve finally decided to hang them over the island but who knows, that could change again.  :)

This is what the back elevation of cabinetry will look like:

This peninsula will extend from the right side of the pantry and will be parallel to the French doors:

When you’re facing the fireplace from the kitchen, this is what the island will look like:

And here is the view of the island from the family room:

Whew!!  We went through lots of trial and error, but I think we finally got it right.  I’ll be on pins and needles for the next few weeks, waiting to see how the finished cabinets look!

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