This is the door between the Dining Room and Kitchen before we began work.
This is the same door, which we widened from the narrow 30", the studs you see was the edge of the old door opening.
The dining room was an extension of the main floor hallway project. Not because it connected directly, but because we needed to remove some plaster and enlarge the door opening from the kitchen to the dining room. Since we were in a horrible mess in the kitchen we decided it was time to tear it all up and get the mess over.
The dining room was about to go through its fourth and final makeover. We began the year we moved in by constructing a wall between the living room and the dining room. A previous owner had opened it up with the removal of most of the wall, this reduced the elegance that a formal dining room needs. This first project was just a patch job to get us by. Then during the living room remodel we removed the gold shag carpet from both rooms as well as the original oak floor that was under it.
We carpeted both rooms, again as a patch. During the window projects during the summer of 1997 we replaced the window in the dining room, painted and papered, again with a patch. This brought us up to the winter of 97/98. We began by removing the carpet to be reused in the hallway project and then constructing a larger opening into the kitchen. The original house plan had a 26" opening between the rooms, which produced a rather small opening.
We also removed the original North wall to the dining room opening up the 30" extension that was planned and built during the 1996 garage addition. Somewhere in the middle of the project we decided to make this extension look like an alcove by arching the ceiling and adding posts on each side. The pictures below show the demolition and framing details.
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This is the door between the Dining Room and Kitchen before we began work. |
This is the same door, which we widened from the narrow 30", the studs you see was the edge of the old door opening. |
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The bottom left picture shows the ceiling framing but also shows the slanted ceiling framing from the mud room and basement entrance. This triangular space will not be used unless we choose to make it closet space at a later date. This space would be accessible from the kitchen where a small pantry style cabinet will set flush to the wall.
Sandy selected a decorating scheme that was based on a picture from the advertisement of the furniture we are using in the dining room. This consisted of a floral paper hung above a chair rail that is 5' above the floor. Calling it a chair rail is probably not correct due to its height, but that is essentially what we used for material.
The posts you see below were made from 3/4 Oak veneer MDF. In case you're not familiar with this product, it is a very dense particleboard that can be routed and shaped. I choose oak so that the grain would show through the paint. We used some small scroll like appliques at the base of the posts. This scrollwork does not show in these photos.
 (Above) Dining room viewed from living room. A hutch will set in the middle of the papered wall. (Right) Dining room viewed looking towards the living room. |
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