Our Sunroom

Hey!  We've been keeping busy around here, and fighting off a couple more viruses in the meantime.  Poor AG has had more sickness in the last 2 months than she has her entire life!!  We're hopeful we'll all be well by Thanksgiving!  When I'm not playing nurse for one of my sick patients, I've been playing Mrs. Claus!  I mentioned before that when we first walked through this house, the one single room I was excited about was the sunroom!  I have always wanted a room full of windows to sit in the mornings and watch the sun come up.  (Yes, I'm up that early.)  We did a good bit of renovating to the sunroom, but most of it was cosmetic stuff.  Nothing TOO drastic.  Here are some before pictures.

The biggest job was the demolition of the walls.  I wanted the sunroom to be open to the kitchen.  We had to add a couple columns for support.  The light fixtures came down and the ceilings were scraped and smoothed.  We added pocket lights and a new fixture where that flower light fixture was.  We also removed the old wood paneling and my dad put beadboard in it's place.  I debated whether or not to take the beadboard from floor to ceiling, and in the end we went for it!  I really love how it turned out.  Of course the floors were also rebuilt and our hardwood continues in there from the kitchen.  Here it is mid-floor.

Ready for the "after" pictures?  Of course we are decked out for Christmas already! :)  Here is the door that leads out to our driveway.  This is the "family" door.  If you know us, you come in this door.  If someone rings the front door, we all look around at each other and wonder who it could be.  Haha.  Even my UPS guy knows to come to this door. :)

I chose a light tan to mirror the cabinets and my dining room wall.  I love the contrast with the snow white trim and the deep dark floors!  I took this picture last night...AG was sitting in there around the tree chatting on the phone with her Grandma and I just thought it was cute!

Notice the masking tape on the windows?  That's because these windows were here when dinosaurs walked the earth and the cold comes right through the cracks! Haha!  It's funny because our bedroom and the den stay very warm and then we walk into the kitchen and freeeeeze!  The tape was Ben's temporary fix until the windows are replaced.  We are looking into that plastic stuff that seals the cracks as well.  I just want something that is completely transparent so it doesn't mess up the view!!

I had been debating what type of furniture I was going to put in here.  We realized early on that we spent all our money on the renovations, and then had nothing left to spend on furniture to put in our newly renovated rooms! One afternoon we were at Ben's grandmother's house and I was wondering around upstairs when I found a wicker bench.  She wasn't using it, and said I could have it for free!! SCORE!  Ben's mom said there were 2 chairs to match it at the beach house that I could bring home next time we went to the beach!  I was beyond excited!  They were a light brown, so I just took them out in the front yard and spray painted them!  I bought some sparkly silver fabric to cover the chairs just for Christmas to match the silver and white tree. I'm still searching for the perfect fabric for year-round cushions.

 



The other side of the room is AG's art corner.  This girl loves to paint!  We got the little table and bench set from Ben's grandmother as well!

My dad built this bench in a high school carpentry class!  Pretty impressive!  It's still just as strong and sturdy as ever, and one of my favorite pieces in the house!  (please ignore the GIANT rusted saw blade leaned against the bench!!  Something my dear husband brought home that has not YET found it's home in the shed....)

 So that's our sunroom.  The furniture is moved around to put the focus on the tree, so I'll show you the normal set up after Christmas is over!