I know, I know, you’ve seen beautiful pictures of the kitchen, beautiful pictures of the bedroom — you must think we’re about done by now, right?
Today it is back to ugly pictures again, folks.
In between the kitchen and the bedroom is the corner dining room. Well, the living room is there somewhere too, but we’re skipping that for now…
Right next to this lovely peninsula is this not-so-lovely little closet.
Actually, I’ve been working on it, and it is much better than it was. Inside. The doors to this little closet will be charming when they are finished. They were in my sanding room for awhile…Of course, they were painted orange.
I couldn’t get all the orange paint sanded off, so I did the best I could and then just primed the heck out of them
Here they are painted with Sherwin Williams Steamed Milk.
Inside the closet the first floorboard is a white pine plank; the rest of the boards are yellow pine flooring boards. It took MUCH effort to get the two types of wood to stain the same. The front plank has so much stain painted on it, that it may never dry..
I’ve been trying out green samples on the dining room wall. Very light, sort of light, and as dark as I want to go. None of them seemed right.
Still life with lamp and ladder…
Then one evening while I was poking around on Retrorenovation.com I found the answer! Vintage Wallpaper! All colors of greens in one wall, which is just what I was trying to figure out how I could do! It’s perfect. I hesitantly brought it up to Mr. H.C. who immediately said he was game. (That was before he saw the price! :-) ) Now if I can only decide…I’ve got two samples coming from Hannah’s Treasures. I’ve put three in this blog post — comments please! Which ones do you like?
Vintage wallpaper from Hannah’s Treasures.
I didn’t order a sample for the bold plaid one on the right, because as soon as Mr. H.C. saw that one, he started shaking his head. I think he just doesn’t like it because it reminds him of the wallpaper he put up (on the same wall) for his mom, Clara in the seventies. (See post 1. The Story of Apple Hill Cottage.) Here it is:
This wallpaper covered the door beside it as well… I think it is fitting that this wall be covered in wallpaper again!
Mr. H.C. assures me that it isn’t the wallpaper it reminds him of, it was a pair of his Dad’s golf pants… Okay, well I might give him that; I think my dad had a pair too.
I could go on… and on… about the floor, and the trim, but I won’t. I WILL show you just one more photo of the dining room table treasure though. We found it ages ago at a ReStore for $35, and it has been sitting in the dining room under three layers of plastic and tarps to protect it from all the junk on top of it.
The top will be stained a darker, rich wood color. I’ve been thinking all along to paint the legs black, but I think I’ve changed my mind, and I’m going to go with the dark green (Benjamin Moore Peale Green) that is on the wall. And a couple of chairs painted that same dark green? What do you think? That’s at least two questions to comment on!
So, are we wallpaper lovers, or not?
the circle of life 
Definitely the first wallpaper, I love the old 70’s orange patchwork, but don’t know if I could have lived with it on a whole wall . I really like the original green on that wall too. Keep up the good work. It’s always interesting.
PS I’d keep the table in it’s timber tones, top and bottom the same colour.
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Yes, I think the first one is our favorite too.
Interesting though about the table — I like the pale top, but there is nothing else in the cottage that is pale wood. So I’m hedging on that one…
(Mr. H.C. likes it natural as well, but as long as we don’t paint the top, he’s okay with either… ) :-)
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I think I like the wallpaper in the middle, I like the crisp look of it, and the greens in it are really pretty. I don’t really have an opinion on the table, sorry. I’m in the middle of trying to figure out a color for my front door. I want to paint it red. Do you know how many different shades of red are out there?!? Oh my, I don’t like making decisions. I don’t envy you of your task at hand, at all! Looking forward to seeing the finished project though! :)
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Yes, I know how many shades of red there are! I was originally going to paint the green wall in the kitchen “apple red”. Sister Diane sent me a dozen large samples from Benjamin Moore in various shades of apple red….
I was paralyzed with indecision and eventually abandoned it for “Granny Smith Green.”
Not that you should! I love red doors on houses. In fact, I think eventually our front door will be painted red too.
You will find a shade, just don’t hurry the process!
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The first wallpaper. I don’t have an opinion about the table as I have no imagination. As for the orange wallpaper is it very similar to a green and yellow wallpaper Mom put in my bedroom. I like mine but that orange is a little much!
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Green and yellow plaid! We had bright orange and yellow flowers in ours. I checked the vintage wallpaper for the seventies in Hannah’s Treasures, and I didn’t see anything similar…
Yes, the orange is a little much! My niece suggested we make a framed collage of the wallpapers…
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The table will look great! As far as wallpaper, I’ve had to strip old wallpaper so many times that it’s made me choose paint whenever I have a choice.
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Yes, I never thought I would go with wallpaper ever again. But it does solve a couple of problems with the wall itself. The plaster has hairline cracks in it, that will be hard to fix without a skim coat, and neither of us wants to do that. Vintage wallpaper requires a first coat of plain paper to go on first, so we both think that will hide the bad plaster. Not sure. Have to do some research on it first.
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That sounds like a wise decision :)
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The 1st wall paper is great and i think the table legs in dark green will look great. Just prepare the wall first with sizing before you paper and everyone after you will be very grateful :)
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Yes, sizing — the step everyone likes to skip!
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I vote no wallpaper. Sorry, it’s probably very chic right now, but I still think it looks a bit fussy and old fashioned. Especially with flowers!
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No, actually I don’t think it is chic. I think it’s kind of “out” — at least you don’t see it much in the style books. But it is a 40s cottage… (and it’s only one wall…) :-)
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Hmmm…. I might be fussy and old-fashioned…
:-)
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