Our Dining Room Reveal!

Welcome to the full reveal of our 

Modern Country Dining Room!

Let's start right back at the beginning for a moment to how the room looked when we first were shown around our house....

See that yucky fireplace in the picture below? 
That was mine. 
Oh, yes, it was.

The fireplace in our dining room was attached directly to the wall with an orange varnished-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life pine fire surround. 

In fact, that goes for all the wood in the room.
Of which there was plenty.

So much, so wrong!

What's a girl to do? 

Aaaaaah! That's better.

At some point in the future, we'll tackle the kitchen and dining room head-on by ripping out and starting again so this was very much a makeover, rather than a full renovation.

I liked the existing grey stone hearth 
so we had the plinths lowered to sit on the stone. 

A smidgen of soft-industrial chic never goes amiss in my book.

I didn't want any orange pine so we painted all the woodwork Dulux White gloss. Nice and crisp against the lush new wall colour, Gregory's Den by Earthborn - a gorgeous Modern Country shade.

The wall between the wood and the fireplace caused endless discussions with, errrr...... me, myself and I. 

{Yes, you read that right.}



The three of us had fascinating debates.

 Should it be the greyish colour of the walls? 

Or white to match the mantelpiece? 

Or...or.... 

*head explodes*

I decided on 
matte black. 

And, you know what?

I LOVE IT!!



When we set out with this room, we knew we wanted a flow-through feel between the kitchen and the dining room, and I'm thrilled with the way the two rooms work together now.

As this is a room that we may structurally alter in the future 
we were keen not to do work that we would 
then have to undo in the long term.



Often, that can mean ending up compromising 
but in this case it was a very 
Modern Country Style workable solution 
and rather gorgeous too, if I may say so. 

Hurrah for paint!!

So, there you have it:
The full Before and After of our 
Modern Country Dining Room!

{If you have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer them by email,
in the comments, or over on Modern Country Style's Facebook page.}

Enter your email address:

to subscribe to Modern Country Style

Master bedroom: before and after

I love 'before and after' posts on interior blogs.....or in magazines, for that matter. I love seeing, side by side, the complete transformation. From dull to dazzling! Do you like 'before and afters'? Is it just me?!

I realised I hadn't done any specific 'before and after' posts. So...I thought I'd do my very own!

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Master Bedroom: before and after. Here is the first before shot, taken before we moved in:

List of hideousness:

Not one, but two, TWO hideous borders. Open hanging rail wardrobe thing. Flimsy tongue and groove covering the lower half. Orange pine shelving unit. What can only be described as a gaping hole in the wall (with broken glass in the bottom). Bed position breaks the room in half, visually and practically.

.....and after the renovation:

We had builders and carpenters and plumbers and electricians and plasterers and decorators in to:

rip out the shelving unit;

rip out the hanging rail;

reposition the attic hatch outside the bedroom;

remove the tongue and groove and TWO borders (!);

move the door by 90 degrees so that we could reposition the bed;

put in two large Velux windows, rather than the teeny tiny ones in before;

reposition the radiator under the sloping roof to give more usable wall space;

build cupboards to look like original Edwardian cupboards to match the age of the house;

move the light switch and light;

move the plugs from on the beams to above the skirting board;

change the door and door handle and architrave around the door;

fit a new skirting board.

Another before:

Why they chose those windows in the first place, I'll never know! The new ones make the room lovely and bright.
We had the walls painted in Farrow and Ball Light Blue, which is possibly my favourite colour ever.

It was a wonderful moment when it was, at last, completed (this along with two other rooms downstairs). The house was back to ourselves (although, I should add the workmen were fantastic on the whole).

We had gorgeous weather on Sunday afternoon. I hope you had a lovely weekend. Aren't those two days off heavenly?

Enter your email address:

to subscribe to Modern Country Style