Here's the progress on the breakfast room update. It's looking pretty darned good.
Bay window (open kitchen is to the left). I bought a cool light kit at Lowe's, that allowed me to replace a canister light with a hanging light. It's an adaptor that simply screws into the exisiting lightbulb socket, and took less than 10 minutes to install. The drop length of the cord is adjustable, and the glass shade is sold separately. Total cost approx. $30 (adaptor kit was $19.99, and shade was less than $10.00)
Yikes ... that window sure looks dirty in the sunlight! The wall with the mural faces the kitchen and family room. With the upper kitchen cabinets removed, the mural will draw your eye through all 3 rooms, approx. 40 feet. In the before pics, there was a tall oak bookcase against this wall.
All 3 wallpapers are up, and I love the way the border ties the upper and lower papers together. The mural is currently up with pushpins, to determine proper placement. Although it's pre-pasted, it won't stick well to the textured vinyl paper below it, so I'll need to use wallpaper paste.
The window on the left is to the immediate right of the mural. On this shorter wall, between the window and the laundry room doorway, the upper paper looks very busy, as expected when I chose it. The idea was to have the pretty wine labels visible in small doses, as an accent, and to cover the rest with artwork or furniture. I've already put a black baker's rack against this wall, the ultimate justification for having stored it in the garage for the past 26 years :o)
Remember this terrific border paper from my previous post? It's made by Village, and was discontinued more than a year ago (and, boy, was I unhappy when I found that out at the wallpaper store on Saturday afternoon!). Last night I found it on eBay, and got a great price on 3 rolls ... woohoo! This will go up in the slanted soffit area.
Still needed for this room:
* A metallic hanging fixture to replace the white ceiling fan
* A round wrought iron table with wood top (currently used at my office) to replace the rectangular pine dining table. I'm going to paint the top of that table black, to match the kitchen cabinets.
* Dining chairs: I plan to paint the current Windsor style chairs black, until I find some other chairs I like that have cushioned seats that can be recovered.
* Bar stools: 2 or 3, for the raised black marble bar we're adding behind the cooktop.
* Window treatments: something bistro-like, but no definite ideas yet. I'm going to start looking at fabrics at Joanne's and a couple other places around town.
* Small bistro table and chairs set: I'd like to put a cute bistro table and 2 chairs in the center of the bay window ... it would be such a great place formorning coffee or a glass of wine, and would add a lot to the overall ambiance of the space. I'm going thrifting this afternoon, to begin my search for a vintage marble-topped table.
* As you can see, there is no wooden trim on the windows, so I've wrapped the wallpaper on to the drywall "inside" the windows. I'm thinking of adding some plain trim on the flat bottom portion, where a window sill normally goes. Nothing fancy, just black painted wood to give it a more finished look, and for added durability. I've wallpapered my window sills before, and the paper always gets dirty and eventually it begins to lift.
