Here are some before and after photos from more completely renovated areas in our 1800’s home. The dining room has been done for a while, but we have recently glazed the windows (outside) and removed some outside debris, so it reminded me it was time to show it off!
Read on (below the photo) to see all the renovations we made in this room of our home.
Photography by Carolyn J. Braden, Design and Construction by Tommy and Carolyn Braden
Dining Room
Removed carpet and drop ceilings
Removed a non-load bearing section of the wall to open the room and create an entrance into the kitchen.
Created our own “sliding door” system using items found at Lowe’s and Home Depot as well as doors we found in a dumpster.
Added stained glass windows (They are hung by simple hooks at the top of the window so they are removable).
Cleaned and shellaced all the wood. See the process we used by clicking here.
Refinished the floors (My husband sanded them with a drum sander and then applied two coats of de-waxed shellac and two coats of polyurethane. We followed this same process with most of the original wood floors throughout the house).
Hung new drywall on the walls
We left the ceilings open (no drywall is hung). The inspiration came from an issue of Southern Living magazine where they featured a house (around the age of our home) with the same open concept. We love it!
Added crown moulding
Painted
Hung an elegant dogwood wall paper on one wall as an accent
Hung a new ceiling light
Added a new door to the closet (the closet is not original, but we decided to keep it so we had a place to hang coats for us and guests).
Added a storage space at the top of the closet using beautiful wood doors we found in someone’s trash pile. (They even look original to the house!)
NOTE:
With the help of my husband’s father, we have completed all the renovations ON OUR OWN.
AND FYI—none of us are contractors or have backgrounds in this kind of work. We’ve just researched and learn as we go! You can learn a lot from YouTube too