FULL HOUSE Renovation Before and After - Entry and Dining Room

The biggest thing that we wanted to change in this area was to have the columns removed.  I remember when we were looking at this house, the columns were nearly a deal-breaker for us, because they were just so not our style.  But we loved enough of the rest of the house to purchase it, columns and all.  We couldn't remove them until we were ready to have new flooring put in, because the old floor was laid around the base of the columns.  Did I mention that these were also merely decorative - not load-bearing at all?  So yeah, there was no reason for them to be there except for aesthetics, and like I mentioned, that was not our aesthetic.

Getting new flooring was huge for this area - the wood floor wasn't solid, so there was not way to sand and refinish it even if we wanted to.  Which, we didn't.  The other thing that I wanted was a more solid front door - while our other door had a leaded glass window and was very pretty, it didn't give us a lot of privacy because anybody could walk up and look inside our house.  As I'm the kind of person who doesn't open the door if I'm home alone and not expecting anyone, I felt especially vulnerable when someone would ring the doorbell and Jeff wasn't home.  Thankfully I always had a dog who would bark like crazy at the doorbell and that usually made the salesmen back away, but still, we needed more privacy.  After looking around, we went with a stock door from Lowe's but painting it black gave it enough oomph to make it look really sleek.

Here's the comparison shots of the area:

This shows the new flooring, wallpaper removal, new light over the dining table, NO COLUMNS (huzzah!), and the wainscotting rebuilt to match the rest of the wall.

We had this rug in our family room but it worked out nicely under the dining table, so we moved it.  I still need art on the wall, and one of these days I'd like to recover the chair cushions.  We rarely used to sit at this table before the renovation, but we've been using it a lot now - it's a much more pleasant room to be in!

 

The entry - the only time I'll miss that little build-out holding the column there is on Halloween as it was a good spot to put the bowl of candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters.  Worth getting rid of it for the open feel that we have now!

 

Not quite the same angle, but close - this shows the changes with the front door, entry lamp, flooring, and column removal.

The rest of the entry area - we had the French doors to my office removed, and the area looks bigger now that they aren't covering the walls on either side, as they did when they were open (which they always were).  We sold the curio cabinet that was on the wall opposite my office, which freed up the area for the large painting that used to belong to my Grandmother.  We love how it looks there and I swear, the colors pop even more.  

 

Close up of our new landing station - we were using a small cabinet that I'd had since childhood, and it went through life being a vanity, a changing table, and then a landing station/tablecloth and placemat holder, but it had seen better days and we wanted something lighter looking.  We found this little table at Ikea and the round shelf unit at World Market.  I still need a couple of taller pieces to put in it, and I'm not married to the black wire basket that Jeff tosses his keys/wallet/phone into, but right now I'm using what I have on hand.

This room has gone from broken up and dark (thanks to the wallpaper) to light, bright, and open.  It seems bigger - I know the continual flooring helps with that, but not having those columns made such a difference!  One friend came over and asked if we pushed the kitchen back, meaning did we move the wall, because this area looks so large.  It's amazing how removing something, or in our case, three somethings, can add so much to a room.