Family Room Part Two

Finally....more pictures of the family room!!!

We have the ceiling completely finished. I stained the original beams Minwax's "Dark Walnut" to make them stand out a little more. Then we under-laid them with heavy bead board that interlocks, letting the bottom show (you can see more about it here). I painted the boards Glidden's "Swan White" in a high- gloss so that the sun light would reflect off of the ceiling.

Both the overhead light and the sconces are from Lowes. I was determined to find sconces that looked like old fashioned oil lamps and I was so excited to find these ones on the Lowes website.

When I first started to envision this room years ago I knew I wanted to find a salvaged mantel piece that was in shabby condition with its original white paint. I thought it would take me years to find it and that when I did find one it would be out of my budget.

I was wrong thankfully! This past summer my mom and I drove a whole bunch of cans of paint that we didn't want to a lady in Volant, PA that has an antique shop. As I was walking around the outside of her shop I saw this mantel leaning on the side the house. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was the one! Shabby...check, original paint....check...., the right size...check...., simple enough...check! I quickly hurried inside and told the owner I might be interested in the mantel she had outside and asked the price (I was panicking inside that it would be out of my budget). She said that since it was so kind of me to bring all that paint that I could have the mantel for $90!

Hurrah, I could afford it! I mean it seems like a lot of money compared to the $25 I spent on the mantel in the living room but I have been to the Country Living Fair and I know what people pay for these sometimes. And it looks like it was always meant to be in the room. My mom and I taking the ride to Volant that day was a spontaneous trip and I always think to myself if we hadn't gone there that day I wouldn't have this beauty. I actually ended up getting a bunch of really great stuff that day that I will show over time. The ironstone bowl on the ottoman was one of those things costing me a whole quarter.

The wicker chair is also a lucky find, I was beyond excited to find it at the Goodwill for $20. It was already white and a cushion I had bought for $5 fits on the seat perfectly.

We plan on having a real fireplace put in as soon we can afford it but for now I put a basket I picked up for $5 at the flea market inside the mantel.

I love the way the floor came out. To recap this is the original floor that we ripped up and then layed back down once this part of the house was leveled. It had about 4 layers of paint on it and about 150 years worth of grime and dirt.

This is the room during the reno, when I took this picture we had already taken the dropped ceiling down.

During renovation, floor taken out.

Neal spent days and days running the hard wood flooring through the planer. He left some of the blue paint showing on some of the boards for a weathered look. Then he laid it back down, staggering the seams as much as possible. We ran out of the original floor once we got back to the last couple rows, we bought poplar boards to finish because they took the stain the way the rest of the floor did. Now that the room is done you can't even tell they aren't the same.

This is the floor after it was laid back down but before I stained it. 

 I used the same stain I used on the beams on the floor, I then put 2 coats of semi-gloss polyurethane over it. I use old t-shirts for the staining part and a brush for the polyurethane, going down the room left to right board by board. It made for lots of long nights but worth it in the end. This was the first time I tried using the fast drying polyurethane and I was very pleased with the results.

I can't wait to sit in my kitchen and have a crackling fire going in there (Neal is SOOO sick of hearing me say that).

I bought these antique railroad stakes at a thrift store, not sure what the story behind "Lakeside Lover" being written on them is but I think its neat.

More pictures of the room to come! And let me know if there is anything about this room that I didn't cover that you would like to know about!