Hi again. This is a good coversation. I'm sure I've seen calliope's terrific pump and parts of her kitchen pics posted here. Love it! Sounds like the way in which country and calliope have reconfigured are really similar. And, I do love seeing the pics posted of what folks have done with their remodels and restorations... so, post those pics country smile and (again) calliope too. [Not only am I old house obsessed, I'm totally kitchen obsessed. Can't help myself.] :-)

Question for igloo... probably read this over on "kitchens", but I forget... are you keeping your house in Alaska too? Or are you moving to the new old house full time? Your AK project was fun to follow; the tile foyer was to die for and the finished kitchen pics with those views.... beautiful! You have great taste and it will be interesting to follow the work on your new house too. Just curious.

Cheers,
-Kim

Calliope I'm dying to see pics of your house...I'm in love and haven't even seen it :)

Kim we're keeping the townhouse in Alaska. My husband will be working both here and in WA (he'll open an office in the gardners cottage on the grounds). He'll be one week with us and one week in AK so we have a good excuse to keep this place. But my son and I also plan on coming back to Alaska every summer (soon to be ruled by his school schedule). We love it here and it will be kind of a fun change to go from new eclectic to victorian charm every year :)

Thank you for the compliments :) I do love how this place turned out and as I pack I'm feeling more and more sad about leaving our home so soon after it was finished. We really love coming back to this place after we've traveled, and DS is enchanted with his room (I don't know if you ever saw pics but it's a 1930's safari tent...literally :) with the walls pulled back to reveal a safari full of animals waiting to play with him). We always knew we'd leave Alaska some day, but not so soon. We're doing it for his health though so we really don't have a choice. We're just lucky to be moving to another cool place and it's near grandma which is going to be wonderful for my son.

I'm pretty excited to get to play with a fabulous victorian :) Such a different project than this place was. There will be no chickens in the kitchen heh heh and I'm ruled by the previous owner's choices (the builder I guess I should say) so instead of my mosaic in the foyer I have to save up to replace his tile entry (minton tiles). The house was built by a man for his family and it has this real manly feel in a good way. Less lacy and more big hulking wood victorianana. It even comes with some of their original furniture :) And the original drapes on the main floor still remain. (They will be taken down and preserved since I have a dog, cat and 3 year old). It's so fun to discover what was verses imagine what could be :) Ya'll understand that because you have historic places, but we're just head over heals about learning the history of the place and hope to restore the few things that are missing (a few fireplaces, a water tower, and a fabulous fence that used to surround the property).

Igloochic, where in Washington? It sounds like your new home is going to be quite a design change. Haven't seen your other home pics, but your son's bedroom sounds like every little boy's dream bedroom!

It's in Port Townsend lavender. A very sweet victorian seaport :)

Igloochic........my home is humble and from the outside it looks just exactly what it is, an old Federal no-nonsense farmhouse. I have owned Victorians, and this house certainly lacks the gingerbread and fine carpentry. It's big, and clunky and plain and simple and I love it. It's a lot like me. LOL. The grounds are to die for, however, and it has a certain rustic charm what suits our lifestyle. Function over form.

I just wanted to say that I would kill for a real dining room. The "dining room" in my house is also the office and the only place books can go and the only place the piano fits...

I could NOT live in an open plan. I just can't handle the big open, empty spaces with no direction. I like a separate dining room, separate living room, and separate kitchen. Heck, I'd like a separate play room for the kids too, so that all the toys and plastic flotsam and jetsam could be... somewhere else. I don't want to eat dinner and see all the kitchen stuff, the dishes in the sink and the leftover yuck from prep. I don't want to be trying to have a nice meal with the tv right there...because I know that if its in the same room, it'll be harder to keep off during meals. And I don't want to be relaxing in the living room, but having to smell what's going on in the kitchen (especially if its the garbage or burnt popcorn).

I could not live in an open plan. I need separation. I feel like open plans get messier too - its harder to put things in their place if everything goes in the same place.

Just my two cents!

Igloochic- Port Townsend is where my friend wants to retire. She says it's a fabulous area!

Melanie- I agree that everything open to everything else can be chaotic. It takes careful planning to have an open floor plan. The book, The Not So Big House, talks about the advantages of open living, but warns that it doesn't work for everyone. Most of the houses the author/architect designs includes an "away room" to get away from all the openess :)

In the farmhouse I'm planning to remodel, the living room is on one side of the house and the dining room is on the other, with the kitchen behind it. We don't have kids, so I'm concerned I won't use the dining room that often, if it's not open to the kitchen. That being said, I plan to have a peninsula (raised) between the two rooms to hide my mess because I love to cook but I do make a mess :)

After many comments and suggestions, I've decided to move the wood stove to the porch and have a bigger table and chairs in the dining room. I still plan to have one large window seat on the front wall, with bookcases on either side.

My away room will be my porch, where I can go hide and watch the horses play. The other thing about a farm is that it's hard to get anybody to drive more than half an hour to visit or have a holiday dinner, when there's three feet of snow on the ground. Just in case, though, I will be able to seat six to eight comfortably.

We used our DR last night for a meal for 15 people. We extended the table 1 ft. into the kitchen to comfortably accommodate the large number and we could have extended it even further if needed. Before we removed the kitchen/DR wall, we couldn't have seated that many people (comfortably) in the DR. Also, with the wall removed, when I needed to leave the table to go to the kitchen (for extra garlic bread or ice water, to plate out the food, etc), I never had to actually leave my guests nor leave the conversation.

I continue to learn many things from my amazing MIL (through observation), including how to be a hospitable host and to focus my energy on people rather than things. Some of my absolute favorite times are having guests for dinner and enjoying their friendship through good conversation during the meal. As Richard Carlson would say, "Don't sweat the small stuff" and to me, seeing dirty dishes in the kitchen definitely falls into that category.

As lavendar lass said, open plans are not for everyone, so people need to find a layout that works best for them. But, keep in mind that there are different degrees of open plans. Having a 10 ft opening from one room to another is different than a large space that functions as 2 or 3 rooms. And, having a good ventilation system at the cooktop and oven will prevent smells from drifting into other parts of the house.

igloochic- I'm looking forward to watching your progress on the victorian house. The fun begins again!!!

Our 1910 Victorian has a wide central hall. We moved our dining chairs, china cabinet, and buffet to the hall since we only have large family dinners once or twice a year. We use the large dining room adjacent to the kitchen as a den/TV room.
After the kitchen renovation, we have plenty of room for an 8' long farm table for daily meals. For the infrequent family meals, we move the table into the hall. With a formal table cloth, centerpieces, and china, the central hall is elegant and suits the atmosphere of a Victorian home. This works for us and allows much better use of our space.

Pinkpaula, that is an interesting and practical solution. We sure would like to see pictures of your home!
Diane

Diane,
Here are a few pictures of our home. The room with the braided rug is the former dining room, now our den. You can see our kitchen with the farm table, which we use every day. For large dinner parties, we move the table to the back hall (where we originally built the table---see last picture). This works for us since we never made use of our dining room.

http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q203/paulaandgene/our%201910%20Victorian/?albumview=slideshow

Wow pinkpaula- what an amazing home! The light fixture in your living room is amazing, as is the huge windows, I could go on. They really don't make them like the used to.

I'd also love to see photos of people's homes, they sound amazing, with lots of character.

To toss my 2 cents into the land discussion, I live in a city, we are fortunate to have a pretty large lot for a city, but while farm conservation definitely effects us in the broader sense, it's not part of our day to day lives. I do feel sad when driving by land that once grew vegetables that now has new houses covering it. I'm also sad that when I go to the farmers market, it seems like the farms are getting further and further away from the city where I live. However, I have to confess that beyond that, I don't know as much about land conservation as I should- thanks for bringing it up country smile.

PP, nice house! The kitchen looks just right with the stained wood table in there.
Diane

Just looked at your house pinkpaula! Oh, it is a super combination of subdued victorian style, elegance and comfort. It also seems quite welcoming! I think the way you use the hallway for formal dinners is a great idea. It seems creatively resourceful and like it offers a special venue for guests at the same time. I think your home is beautiful.

I do love seeing everyone's pics!

Thank you all for your kind comments. We still have many projects to keep us busy, but the biggest renovations are finished.

After our girls married and moved, we thought about how we actually use the space in our house. We did away with the dining room and turned one of the bedrooms into my arts & crafts/computer area. My husband also paints, so we gutted the small former second kitchen at the very back of the house into an artroom/messy man cave for him. Lavendar Lass seems to be thinking about the most practical use of her space. I know it will turn out great!

I would also enjoy seeing pictures of all of your homes!

I agree with the others Paula, your house is warm and welcoming. Those tall windows must be great for allowing light to flood your rooms. Your beautiful rugs caught my eye!!! How great to make the most out of the space and make it fit your needs.

What a gorgeous home :) They just don't build them like that anymore.

I love the idea of using the hall as a dining room! Ours isn't quite that wide, but I could easily see using it as a serving area for coctail parties....the flow would be perfect...thank you for inspiring me LOL

We use our dining room every night with the kids. We light candles, use linen napkins (buy them on sale for $ 0.75/ea), and have background music. The kids love it and request the candles if we don't use them. A lot of times we have lunch here too. We have a kitchen table but use it for breakfast occasionally. The kitchen table is used for crafts, dinner prep and other things. When we have guests for the weekend they use the kitchen table more than us. I think I just feel cramped in the kitchen. We're undertaking a major remodel including a kitchen gut with an 8' addition for a large farmhouse table and island with seating. I think we may use the kitchen more but still use the dining room for our nightly meals.

We are empty nesters living in a 6500 sq ft Craftsman. Love my dining room! Although DH and I don't use it for ourselves, when the family is here, it's just wonderful for all 15 people to sit at the dining room table together. Had a custom table built Table opens up to 135" X 48".

Pam, how wonderful that you are establishing that tradition with your children. All children should be so lucky to have that family time.

{{!gwi}}

Our home is 1790s too,We have summer kitchen is attatched to house,big fireplace that they cooked in,the kitchen was not originally in there and the kitchen that was put in there was done 1980s style,we removed it put our dining room in to the period of the home looks beautiful no one knows but us because of the restoration work done.I see nothing wrong with fixing something like this.
The land same we have 40 acres was once 240 acres,it was run down,we fenced it in ,cleaned it up,we raise texas longhorn cattle,horses.Planted fruit trees,We brought in a log cabin set it up very old,put kitchen garden beside the cabin.
The barn one of the oldest in our county was in danger of collapsing .It is post & beam,We put new roof fixed the one beam that was broke,It will stand a long time.

bulldinkie - Today is the first I read your post. Your old buildings sounds very interesting. Could you post photos of your summer kitchen that now serves as your dining room? Does it still have the big fireplace? Also, I'd love to see photos of your barn (and I know my husband would be interested in seeing photos also).

We also have a summer house - one room downstairs with wedge-shaped, narrow steps leading to the one room upstairs. The fireplace in that kitchen sounds similar to yours. Underneath the summer house there is another arch cellar (there's also one under the main house). The summer house is in bad need of repair and is on the list of things to be restored sometime in the future. Many years ago a elderly man had stopped at our farm and told me that he once lived in the summer house when he was a child. I'm still angry with myself that I didn't get his phone number and name so we could invite him for dinner and hear about his life during that time.

Our limestone barn is dated 1786 and serves as our dairy barn. The beams on the second floor of the barn are amazing - huge in length and width(?). The barn is a solid structure and should be standing for many centuries to come. It amazes me how well they built structures in the past with no heavy equipment to help in the construction.

So...can I pest you again for photos? :)

Joyce,

Great dining room! Where do you keep all of your extra chairs when the family isn't around? Do the extra chairs match the rest of the chairs in the dining room?

Thanks, gold dust. We have some chairs in the conservatory (sun room) right off the dining room, some are used around the game table, and the rest are stored in the basement. I wish we had 15 of the mission style chairs in the picture, but we only had 6 made that matched the table. So the rest are mismatched, but that's ok with me.

I'm a little late to the game, but we use our dining room all the time. I love it! It's actually my favorite room in the house. La kola said it best, I feel peaceful went I sit there. We tend to linger longer after dinner as well. But it sounds like for your case a combined kitchen dining would work well with your house.

pinkpaula, I love what you did in your living room! I love the other pix too, but the living room is the vision I had for my living room. It looks comfortable but classy. What is the color on the walls?

Country smiles=Im from Gettysburg area,our home was owned by a col.George Himes he was in battle of Gettysburg,I have deed with his name on it.In 1800.circa 17.90.

mom2lilenj Thanks! The living room paint is Sherwin Williams Antique White #6119. The paint "reads" creamy yellow due to the drapes and the sofa fabric.

The den (former dining room)is Sherwin Williams Ecru #6135.

bulldinkie - I live about an hour away from Gettyburg so I've been there many times. I love driving through Gettysburg and seeing the old homes both in town and out in the country. (We've been at the college for a few basketball events too.) You're fortunate to have the original deed. I need to go to our local historical society and spend a day researching our homestead. Thanks for sharing your information.

IMHO a dining room is where you gather your entire family and special friends in order to reinforce bonds that are not easily maintained in today's world.

It is also the place where you teach your kids how to behave in public. I would never hire anyone without taking them to lunch first.

In many ways a dining room is the most important room in a house.

Well, we have ripped out everything in our new (1888 victorian) kitchen and put in new cabinetry. It no longer has a place to eat (save for a singe counter height stool sitting at the "bar"). Therefore, the dining room is every meal, every day unless only one person is eating (such as a single child having cereal in the morning).

I personally love formal dining rooms. In our current home (modern) we have a lr/dining combo and an eat in kitchen. We tended to use the kitchen when it was only 3 or 4 people and the dining when it was more. Because it was a combo though, it lacked the ambiance of a real dining room.

I use my dining room as a living room, my living room as a bedroom and have no place to eat except on the couch with trays. I hate it and am considering expanding my kitchen out via 5' addition so I can fit a table in there but then I would have to buy new cabinets and move all the plumbing around. sighhhhhhhhhhh...the joy of old houses.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond to this post. I was going to say that I wish I could use a formal dining room. We don't have kids, we live a good half hour from most of the family so hosting dinners are not usually an option, we don't celebrate the holidays here and it's going to cost more to keep the dining room and add on to the kitchen.

All good points, but the more I thought about it, the more they seemed like excuses. The truth is, I would love to have a formal dining room. I love the idea of sitting around a table, eating dinner, talking to friends and having the focus be the meal and the conversation (not the dishes and the mess in the kitchen). I am a messy cook. I love to cook, but I am a messy cook :)

I also dream of having "fancy" tea with friends and using the good china my grandmother gave me. I like the idea of combining the dining room with a library, lots of old books and dark wood. I could also include some tea accessories, books and tea pots, maybe some silver serving pieces.

I do need a kitchen big enough to have a table and chairs and a woodstove. Not only has it been a dream of mine to have a big farm kitchen, but with the power going out more often, having a woodstove will heat the house and allow me to cook dinner, or at the very least, boil some water.

A formal dining room is sometimes considered a luxury, but so is a clawfoot tub or an enclosed porch. Maybe they're not absolutely necessary, but they do make a house feel more like a home. Thank you all for your input!

Well, it's been almost two years, since the last post on this thread. While I started out wanting to take down a bunch of walls, recent events have me rethinking that decision. Now, I think a formal dining room and an addition to the kitchen is going to be a better solution.

So, I wanted to say thank you to everyone, who have taken the time to share their experiences on this post. I've been doing a lot of research on 1920s homes and I'm glad we've had to put the remodeling on hold. If I had been able to remodel sooner, it would have been an entirely different layout.

Now, we have the living room and dining room, in the front, a sun porch, off to the side, the kitchen with a banquette and small seating area, and a master suite added on, to the house. It's going to be a little more expensive, but I think it will end up being a much better fit, for us.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday and thanks for all your help and input :)

I loved the dining room in my 1837 house, but after reaching a lifestage where we don't entertain as much (kids on their own, parents not as mobile as before) I found we were rarely using the dining room and formal living room. Instead, we were spending most of our time in the very small den/library because of the wood stove we put in the open fireplace (it smoked). When I eventually needed a home office, we turned the dining room into a den, adding a second wood stove, and turned the library into an office.
The dining room furniture went into one end of the oversized formal living room, where we have only used it once in the past 3 years.
I miss my pretty dining room, but it was a waste of real estate. We can always change it back when we sell or when our needs change.

I'm not reading the garden web these days but when I saw this post (below) I thought of you right away. I don't know for sure if you can read it without joining but there's lots of good stuff there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Old house on line

One more. You really have to visit there.

Here is a link that might be useful: light blue uppers

Pinch me- Hi! Thank you for the links. Those are great...and I love the blue :)

How have you been? Maybe stop by and visit the Smaller Homes forum...we're always having fun, over there!

Yes we do mostly every night..

Bulldinkie- Thanks for the response :)

We have a rather small home; there is not even a family room. Just a kitchen, dining room and living room on the first floor. The kitchen has room to seat barely 4 so our dining room is used quite a lot; even if it's just the 2 of us having dinner.

Typically, we eat most of our meals in front of the TV in the living room. Our coffee table lifts up and becomes a small table. We never eat in the kitchen at all. There is no heat source in it (it's a very old home) so it's not particularly comfortable in the winter and secondly the room hasn't quite been finished yet (we renovated in the past year and haven't yet figured out what to do about the seating in that room; just have a basic table that has been serving as a catch-all for the small TV in the room and extra things which don't fit into the cabinets and are awaiting extra cabinets to put them in).

So, long story short is if I'm making a nicer dinner for us, we'll use the dining room. If it's something casual, it's in front of the TV. Company has to be in the dining room because there is just no room any place else! As it is I only have enough room to serve 6 anyway, although the room could probably seat 8, or maybe even 10 if I had a larger table. Which I don't. Maybe kind of on purpose. I used to love to entertain big but I bought this house with the idea of downsizing.

Sivyaleah- Thanks for the thoughtful response. We eat dinner in front of the TV some nights, too. LOL But, it is nice to have a place, out of the kitchen, to relax, visit with friends and enjoy a good meal. I'm glad you enjoy your dining room :)

Reviving this - I've always liked a formal dining room, and it doesn't have to be "formal" in style. We've always used the DR except at breakfast - now that we are having a winterized porch turned into a sunroom/"nook," we may have breakfast in there more often, but I like setting the table, lighting candles, etc. for dinner every night. I can see using the sunroom/"nook" more often in the summer, when it is light, but I like the idea of a more intimate, private, cosy room the rest of the time.

Do people in open floor plans put their dishes, like special occasion dishes, or decorative majolica, or crystal or whatever, in their kitchens? We're going to have built-ins in our new DR, and I know we'll enjoy looking at all our pretty things.

Separate room = less noise (from other rooms, the vent hood, etc.), more privacy, more wall space, to us anyhow.

What do people in open floor plans do with their art, photographs, mirrors, etc? Are they all on horizontal surfaces? We have so many cool family photographs, heirloom, paintings, travel pictures, and garden pictures that already we have to rotate them in and out like an "exhibit," or else it would seem too cluttered.

Oh, and I am an extremely messy cook.

And maybe it's just old fuddy-duds who like separate rooms. Am I a fuddy-dud at 40?

My house is tiny, the kitchen is tiny. The dining room is a sort of connecting room between the living room and the kitchen, and has just enough room for a small table and two bench type seats.
For 30 years I lived in an open concept home where the living room kitchen and dining area were one big 'L' shaped room. As small as it is, I love that my dining area is separate now.

So much has happened (husband quite ill, husband getting better, husband home, but with wheel chair, then walker) that I'm starting to rethink some of my earlier ideas, for remodeling the house. (It's going to be a while, but still hoping to do it at some point!)

I've been watching Nicole Curtis and liking the living room open to dining room that she has in so many of the older homes. I really like the built-ins and fireplace (even the stained wood trim!) and I'm rethinking the living room/bedroom. The addition put the bedroom behind the living room, but it would be so easy to open them up to each other, with a big archway. The living room is 18 'x 14' and the bedroom is 18' x 13'.

It's a lot of space for an area we might no use as much as the kitchen and den, but I think it would be beautiful. And it might be a great place to overflow, when we have a lot of work to do and need more space than our home office.

So, anyone done anything similar? Have you turned a lager room into the dining room and decided to keep the smaller dining area part of the kitchen? That room is pretty small, so the current kitchen and dining room would make a great kitchen/nook area. Just not big enough for more than 4 (maybe 6) people to eat...and we have a large family!

After what's happened, I realize you can't take anything for granted and want to start hosting more holiday and family dinners, as soon as we can :)

Both of our homes, a 1920's era vernacular and 1950's era cottage have dining rooms. The 1920's home had been remodeled..or remuddled, depending on how you look at it. I quite honestly can't say for sure that there were never walls, BUT when we got it, it was mostly open to the kitchen and completely open to the liviing room. It was unique those, and definately a small house at just under 900 sq ft stuffed into a 1 3/4 story. When we recently did some remodeling to get it ready for another stint before, before we bought it) we found "shadows" on the floor that indicated it had built ins dividing the living and dinings spaces a little, like you might see in an arts and crafts bungalow. we typically used it when people came over, otherwise we ate in the living room (no kids).

The cottage may or may not have had the front portion remodeled, I can't tell for sure. It doesn't follow the floor plan of another cottage that seems to be a twin, but it may never have done so. Here, we have the dining and kitchen open to each other, with a small knee wall between them where the stove sits (this I think was added on). We also use it only occasionally, but I lvoe having it as it is, it lets a lot of light into the kitchen and makes it feel bigger-plus I enjoy the decor in it, lol.

In the twelve years since we remodeled the kitchen plus breakfast room into a large open kitchen plus eating area, we have not used out separate dining room for dining one single time.

We do occasionally use the table there to work jigsaw puzzles.

Rosefolly

I grew up in a home that had a dining room. We have one now and have had it in every house. I don't know why people don't use theirs. Do they chose tables and chairs which are uncomfortable or are we afraid to hurt them? Each house I have owned has had as many steps to get to the dining room as to the breakfast room. What is it about modern life that we feel the need to shun a beautiful room? Or do we feel that it is too stuffy? Or is it the lack of the TV? My kitchen does not have one there either so that might be why using the dining room is no difficult problem. Quite frankly I like eating without seeing the mess of cooking. I have enough of that for later, lol.

I made my kitchen functional as I have a small home so I combined both dining room and kitchen together. And I am very happy because this is that only time that our family spend together.

We do use our dining room for eating, and I also sort mail in there. I keep bills in a drawer. I also have a file cabinet in there because there is nowhere else to put it at this time.

I like the big eat-in kitchen idea though. I don't think one is better than the other. I like a separate dining room but some like it open. What would be ideal would be to have both! I don't have space for that though.

My brother used his dining room as a living area.

I may have found a winner :)

This dining room is so pretty and is 1) not too formal for everyday, 2) not too casual, and 3) has its own identity...not just an end of the kitchen, but still connected. {{gwi:1493647}}From Lavender Lass farmhouse pictures

I really like this kitchen picture, too...could be the other end of the room. {{gwi:1493646}}From Lavender Lass farmhouse pictures

Does anyone have a fireplace in their dining room? Do you enjoy it? Ours would be raised (current living room) and the space is 18' x 14', so I think it would make a great dining/keeping room. Any good/bad about the fireplace, if you have one?