Ramblings: A Hole in the Wall is Worth a Renovation

So I came downstairs a few weeks ago and found my son putting a hole in the wall with a hammer.

I'm totally teasing. Well, he really was putting a hole in the wall with a hammer but he was doing it because we said it was okay! Jason and I have been wanting to open up our downstairs so each room wasn't so blocked off from the other. Being that formal living areas, formal dining areas and kitchens are usually to be for entertainment purposes, it felt very much uninviting due to the walls between each area.

See what I mean? Totally shut out, boring and dark (depending on which way the sun is during the day).

So we decided to knock down a wall between our dining and living rooms.

Then the framers came and put the support beams in...we didn't want Lawyer's playroom that was directly above the dining to come crashing down on us.

Oh and from this angle you can see that metal frame hanging over the table area. There is a piece of glass that sits on it so that we can put candles, decorations, whatever, on it...I found it at Pottery Barn a few years ago and then I ended up getting it for my birthday last year (thanks Mom and Dad!). It sat for almost a year until it finally got put up! Oh and you can see the wires hanging out of the ceiling that have become homes for halogen spots (yeah! the ugly brass fixture has been taken down!).

Drumroll please....I can't say this is the finale since we need to do a few more things before this room is complete but here is the ALMOST finished dining room. We LOVE the deep navy walls so much (if you saw the pictures when the dining room was red, you will notice that we had picture framing on the bottom half and the bottom half was also white....way too traditional for us) and think this room now looks so much more classy, urban and sleek.

Oh and see the main wall? It is going to be proudly displaying this canvas art from Z Gallerie:

It's a really deep espresso and ivory print on canvas and it's HUGE...it's 5'wide by 4'tall.

See how open it is?

We know that with the dark furniture and dark walls, everything seems to blend together but we are planning hanging a curtain rod from the ceiling (we saw this in a hotel in Miami...way contemporay rather than putting it directly on the wall) in front of the windows and we found these grommeted curtains from Pottery Barn that we will put in front of the window:

They are Dupioni Silk...they are very luxiourious-looking since they are very shimmery. I love that the grommets are a deep espresso...it contrasts very nicely with the light curtains.

Also, if you notice where the new opening is between the dining and living rooms, you'll see that you can see the bare concrete floor. Well, we have always had plans of acid staining the entry, dining and kitchen a deep espresso (we had done this in our previous home and loved it) but since everything is so dark now, we think we are going to just have bare concrete with no stain and just put a sealer over the top to both protect it and darken it up a tad.

Oh and I don't ever think that I have shown off my birthday present from last year (Jason actually got this put in around my birthday)...I obviously am not a coventional shoes and clothes girl when it comes to presents, I love cool, unique items for my home. Isn't that a cool fixture?