1920's Dining Room | Before & After

I've talked about this home several times here, here and here. It is a wonderful home from the 20's that we have been restoring over the past year. Today I'll show you the dining room. The image below is of the room before. One of the things that we wanted to salvage for the room was the wall texture. The walls are solid plaster and have a beautiful, deep texture, but we needed to get rid of the glossy paint (bad idea in this style). We also salvaged the antique Spanish crystal chandelier.

The floor looks a little cool in the photos but it isn't an inlaid marble floor as it appears. It was an unattractive painted cement tile and so we didn't feel too bad removing it. We replaced the floor with an amazing French herringbone wood floor.

I tied the same graphic feeling into the custom sisal rug by Fibreworks.

The ceiling had been sprayed with popcorn at some point (see image below), and so we removed all of that and added a beautiful plaster texture to coordinate with the walls. We added birch beams to the ceiling as well. The beams give the room some architectural interest that was lacking.

We also cased the plaster openings to accent the 13" thick walls and to give the pass throughs a more finished look.

We replaced the old windows with stunning bronze casement windows. I love the graphic that a horizontal muntin creates. I use this look often in my work because I love it so much!

Cremone locks make me smile and stare lovingly at whatever they are attached to :-)

Linen French cord and nailhead detail on the custom dining chairs.

In the image below, you can see the beautiful Spanish crystal chandelier that was original to the home. Love! We had it rewired and professionally cleaned (which for those of you who don't know, this means it had to hang from an A-frame in the back of a truck so that it could be transported to the tradesman's shop for rewiring and cleaning-sidenote: I so appreciate someone who has perfected their trade and takes pride in their work) and it looks stunning!!!

I hope you've enjoyed another little peek into this fabulous home. I still have tons more to show you as we finish different areas.

How hard is it to come back to work after the holidays?!?!...couple that with a long maternity leave...sheesh!

I hope everyone out there is managing ;-) and getting a great start to the new year!

Our Joyful Little Christmas

Our Christmas card - Merry Christmas from the Becks :-)
Here are some favorites from our holiday in Lubbock...

I did the backs in a chevron pattern...love!

All sealed and ready to go just by the hair of my chinny chin chin....

I was a little behind this year :-/

Cozied up with Aunt Beetle

Fun with photo booth

Fancy schmancy cheese ball thanks to Aunt Suz

Hula hoops full of gumballs

Caleb holding his new cousin Alice

Gram and Alice

I swear I was good Santa...

Christmas dinner

Bauble

nuff said

We got a white Christmas

Our family - Me, Frank & Alice

Intrigue

Me and my little sugar plum

I hope that your holiday was joyful as well, and that you celebrated the true reason for the season, the birth of our Savior.

Here's to a happy and healthy 2012!

The Past Few Weeks...

I just thought I would do somewhat of a photo-dump on here of some highlights from the past few weeks.

We had a very intimate Thanksgiving this year. We weren't quite ready to travel with the smidgen, so a few of my family members traveled from Dallas to be with us. Not everyone could make it, so our usual 25 member dinner turned out to be just 5. Only my mom and 2 of my 4 sisters could make it for the actual dinner but another sister made her way down the next day. It was very sweet, easy and relaxing!

My momma, sister Carla, sister Angela, the hubs Frank and see that little pink in the bottom left corner...that was Alice's seat :-)naps

The smidgen and me.

My little sister Angela and Miss Alice

Another sister, Tina, her boyfriend Chris and my girl.

Sometimes only Daddy can make it better.

We did some Christmas tree shopping.

What?... What do you wear when you shop for a Christmas tree? ;-P

Every year I stand in front of the tree for at least 15 minutes debating colored lights vs white lights. This year I did both.

We are so looking forward to our first Christmas as a little family. Eventhough she doesn't know what is going on yet, a certain magic has returned and I am very excited for her :-)

After the 1st of the year I will be heading back into projects after a very comfy maternity leave. I have loved my uninterrupted time with the smidgen, she is just beyond precious!!!

Thank you to all who read this little ol' blog and leave me such sweet, encouraging comments and emails! It makes writing on here so much more fun!

I hope you've had a great week. It's the weekend, yay! :-)

Visual Comfort & Co. Feature

Visual Comfort & Co. is one of my absolute favorite lighting sources and I am so flattered that they have featured one of my projects on their blog today.

Take a peek back to when I featured this project on Live Beautifully if you would like to read more.

In this project, I used two of the gorgeous Double Twist 5 Light chandeliers in hand rubbed antique brass by Eric Cohler for Visual Comfort & Co. Aren't they stunning?!

Thanks for the feature Visual Comfort :-)