Breakfast Room: Before & After Part 2

The breakfast room renovation in our 100 year old home was a major project… In fact it was so extensive, I had to split it up into two post to show you the before and after.

Last week I showed you this:

If you missed part 1, click here to see the demo!

This week I’m going to share with you the 2nd half of our newly renovated breakfast room.

First, remember I said there originally was only 1 north facing window and we installed a patio door on the south wall as well as a pair of double hung windows on the west wall?  Here are what the finished windows look like now:

The windows are precisely placed in a special spot on this wall, but that I’ll explain better when I show you the kitchen in the future.

The baker’s table sitting below the windows is the same that was in the dining room at our former house.

When we bought this 100 year old house and started renovating it, what we now call the breakfast room looked a lot different. There wasn’t the window opening between the kitchen and it. (check out last week’s post to see the before picture) This room was a dark cave of a room, feeling very separated from the rest of the house, both physically and in style. We moved a patio door, originally separating it from the kitchen, to the south exterior wall, flooding it with natural light. Then, between the kitchen and this room, to ‘connect’ it more physically to the kitchen, we cut in this window and 2 doorways leading to the kitchen, totally transforming it from a separate ‘odd’ room, to what now is totally part of the house, feeling like a wonderful extension of the kitchen.

Well what is a breakfast room without a breakfast table?

My dad made this trestle table with tile inset in the top for us when we had little babies still at home… that was over 30 years ago! It’s had lots of wear and tear, and being made of pine, shows most of those nicks and dents, and I love every one of them!

We had this table and the bench in the sunroom of our former house with a pair of deacon’s benches, but felt there just wasn’t enough room in this new setting for the deacon’s benches. So, this pair of chairs I found on craigslist. they are super comfortable and super sturdy. They came from the University of Wisconsin science department the seller told me. And they do very faintly still have the ‘W’ on their backs to prove it. For now it’s good, but I do feel that with the wide plank floor (laminate, same as we used in the lower level of our former house family room) it is just too much wood. I won’t paint the table because of all the memories, but maybe the chairs and bench? Don’t worry, if I do, I’ll let you know about it… and show you.

This breakfast room is long and narrow, thus the tendency is to just ‘line the walls’ with furniture. But that doesn’t look very visually appealing. That’s why I placed the table perpendicular to the wall. It kind of gives it a ‘booth’ or ‘nook’ feel without cutting the room up too much.

To really emphasize the window to the kitchen, I flanked each side with this pair of antique sconces I found on Ebay. I stuck a candle in each of them instead of rewiring, but they were originally electric. I love the hand painted flowers on them.

Over one of the two doorways leading to the kitchen, (the other doorway is on the opposite side of this wall, down by the patio door side) is the reproduction style coffee advertising sign I found at the Pottery Barn Outlet store in Ohio. (What fun that store is!)

Originally the wall between the kitchen and this breakfast room was an exterior wall of the house… back 100 years or so ago when it was built. You can see in the doorways and window opening how thick the wall is.

This is the room now… clearly a breakfast room… and more…

We all (the grandchildren included, see their pint-sized table by the sofa?) really enjoy using it daily.

I have several details to share with you about the renovation project that helped finish the look… like the ceiling, the floor, the window treatments, the unique stained glass hanging over the miniature garden in the bay window… so be sure to watch for those in upcoming posts.

If you’d like to read a little more,

Click here to see more about vignettes and why flanking something on each side is substantial.

Click here to see the sunroom of our former house that we used as a breakfast room.

Please feel free to share this blog with your friends, as well as on Facebook and Pinterest and Flipboard and Houzz the more the merrier!

I appreciate you stopping by.

I’m linking up at these other great blogs:

Between Naps on the Porch     A Stroll Thru Life     Posed Perfection     Too Much Time on My Hands

Skip to My Lou     Coastal Charm     From My Front Porch to Yours     Chic on a Shoestring

I Should Be Mopping     A Bowl Full of Lemons     The Charm of Home     Shabby Nest

Uncommon Designs     Tip Junkie     My Repurposed Life     Girl Creative     Serenity Now

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia     My Romantic Home     Funky Junk     It’s Overflowing

Stone Gable     Savvy Southern Style   French Country Cottage     Nifty Thrifty

Home Stories A to Z     DIY by Design     Design, Dining and Diapers     DIY Showoff