Shades of Gray, or is it Grey?

It has been a while since I've added a post to the Haven blog. Life is crazy at this time of year!

So, to bring you up to date, the first phase of the renovation of Haven is complete. The floors in the Living Room and Dining Room were stripped of their lumber liquidator look and we sanded and sealed the original heart pine floors. They are a little rough due to all of the nail holes from the lumber liquidator mahagony but I prefer that to the slick dark floors that came with the house. Once the floor people were gone, we were able to move all of our family room furniture down stairs and place things back in the living room and dining rooms.

It took me a while to feel the inspiration of how to decorate the dining room. My parents gave me their dining room table and china cabinet when they retired to Florida but I couldn't decide how to treat the walls and ceiling. I bought a chandelier from Currey and Co. long ago but that is as far as I got. The room is dark - there is a set of French doors leading out to a dark space between my house and my neighbors and then a window which looks out at another dark part of the front yard. So, it finally came to me after hours of pondering -- why not just embrace the darkness - it will never be a light filled space so why try? In addition to being a dark space, the fireplace surround is a dark slate.

While browsing through the books at the Benjamin Moore store a few weeks ago, I came across a photo of a room by Samuel Botero (see 5th Avenue house in portfolio section). It has a very "barely there" damask stencil applied to the walls. Aha.

My good friend, Anji Johnston, who did my kitchen checkerboard, was enlisted to come back down to transform the room.

Dining Room "before"

First I got Harry to paint the ceiling Benjamin Moore Pearl Gray and the crown Benjamin Moore White Dove. While he was up on the ladder, I was working on the base for the walls - Benjamin Moore Stone Harbor.
Then Anji arrived with her bespoke stencils and we worked to get the right paint color for the image itself. I wanted it to be very muted so Anji took the base paint and added black artist acrylic to it. She also kept a bit of the ceiling color handy for some light contrast.

The first "test" of the stencil - perfecto!

I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out. The next week I had 18 people for Thanksgiving dinner - we put the kitchen table at the end of this table . A couple of people at the end were in the hallway but it was so nice to not have to stick the children at a kid's table in another part of the house - it was so nice to be all together. Onward towards Christmas.

By the way, the radiator covers were made by Tim McCready of Bankston and Bailey and were painted by Anji and me the same color as the walls so that they would recede. The funky valances were done by previous owners - I believe as a way to hide some pipes as the ceiling is lowered behind them. The sisal followed us down here from northern Virginia and fits fine in its new home.

The last thing we were waiting for before we could call the project complete was the fireplace insert. I didn't have it in time for Thanksgiving but the week after Mike from the Victorian Fireplace shop came out to install the gas insert, mantel and hearth. We ran it all weekend as it was rainy and cold here in Richmond and we were out in it a lot as we went by foot to Fox Elementary to get our Christmas tree. The fireplace unit works by remote control - and although I love the smell and sound of a "real" fire - there is nothing like sitting back on your behind and pushing a button for some instant ambience and warmth. I had a party here on Saturday to thank the contractors and neighbors and worked like a fiend to find the Christmas decorations and get them up. The party was so much fun and so now I can sit back and enjoy my home and the moment I am in. Richmond has a special way of decorating for the holidays and I will try to capture the feeling in my next post. Best wishes to you and yours at this time of year.