Entry and Dining Room

I thought I would start the tour with the obvious “front rooms”. Above is a photo of the entry way in our home. I love the rug. There’s really not much else to see other than a silk plant near the stairs and a cat condo. I really hate having the cat condo be the first thing you see when you walk in my house. I just couldn’t find a better place for it. The entry way is just so plain an uneventful. I don’t think it really reflects who we are. Eric took an amazing photo at Little Round Top in Gettysburg recently, that we are having printed and will frame. I would like it to hang on the wall at the bottom of the stairs behind the door. I love using our travel photos as artwork for our home. Just inside the door, we have this little tile with an “L” for our last name.

The dining room is just off the entry way. When we got married, we didn’t have any furniture for the dining room, so these pieces were our first (and only) purchases. I love the table and the buffet – I think they are just beautiful. The table does have a leaf in it, so it can be made smaller.

Because of the style of the chairs, we decided to go with some Asian decor in this room. The napkin rings are black iron looking, and have an I-Ching looking coin on them. I searched for a long time for a Buddha statue that I liked. This one actually came from Target.

For the buffet table, as soon as we purchased this I knew it was perfect to hold Eric’s swords. He collects swords and these needed a place of honor. We have our woven straw coasters on the left corner. On the right corner, that little box holds a sword-cleaning kit. There are Japanese characters on the lid. On the bottom shelf sits our three crystal decanters and a Mah Jong set. Above the buffet are some of our wedding photos.

We have a little jade piece hanging from the light fixture. The light fixture itself came with the house. I believe the jade piece is a character for wealth.

I consider this room “finished” except for one thing.

My Kimono quilt top has been assembled, but has not been quilted. I need to quilt it and finish it into a wall hanging. At the moment the quilt top is just tacked to the wall. The wall it is on is really too small for it, but as this is an octagonal-shaped room, there wasn’t really another choice. I love this quilt though. Once we started on the Asian accents for the room, I worked really hard to complete it.

I don’t know that I really like “theme rooms”. I do like rooms to have a certain feel to them, and as I have a degree in Art History, a lot of the rooms I am attracted to are based on specific cultures or periods. I do love the idea of having “period rooms” throughout the house, and hopefully they will all work together as a whole.

To “finish” these two areas I intend to have the Little Round Top photo printed, framed and hung as well as to quilt and finish the Kimono quilt. Any other suggestions?