SoPo Cottage: Vintage Colonial: Living Spaces

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Vintage Colonial: Living Spaces

I love everything about this house, but now that it's done, I realize the first floor living spaces are my favorite.

I've already shared the kitchen and dining room - so let's take a look at the living room. This room was pretty bland when we started. A long brown box of a room, with a big black wood stove in the fireplace.

You start to see the difference as soon as you walk in the front door. See the difference from the foyer?

One of the biggest changes was to open up the wall to the kitchen. Can you believe this is the same view??

Before

After

Aren't the antique andirons great???

And we made the fireplace a real focal point for the room. That included removing the clunky old wood stove, inserting antique anchor andirons (more about that here!) that we found on the property and adding custom molding and sconces.

Of course having a big bay window across the front of the room ensures the space is always flooded with sunlight!

But that's not all. The living room has another doorway that's the entrance to the home office.

This room was truly a freezer when we started (seriously, all the cleaning products I put in there turned into ice cubes overnight! The two electric heaters in the room should have been a clue that there was an issue!).

But after insulating all the exterior walls, crawl space, fixing the radiator and replacing the old windows with energy efficient ones, this room is so cozy and bright. Well, I just love it!

We reworked the bookcases, added custom cabinets doors and a cover for the radiator. Add to that a very cool edison light fixture and you have a pretty fabulous room!

But the coolest thing??? My friend and neighbor showed up at the door with 6 crystal knobs from her house that she couldn't use. They are PERFECT for the brand new cabinet doors. Doesn't that add a fantastic detail? And you have to love that they came from a house right up the street - truly staying in the neighborhood.