The _______________ Room

We don't know what to call this room.

It's our breakfast room....

It's our dining room....

It holds my cookbook collection and RH's Bible Commentary books....

My extensive collection of vintage women's magazines resides in this cabinet....

This room is where we play checkers and keep an eye on the new bluebird house outside the window that has already been claimed...

We watch television and read and talk here....

It's a breakfast room and dining room and living room and more.

But we don't know what to call it. It's more of a Gathering Room than anything else but I can't see myself asking RH to "please carry this to the Gathering Room." Great Room doesn't seem to fit either.

I don't know what the previous owners called it but I do know they must have eaten their meals here too because there is not room for that in the kitchen.

Here are two photos from the real estate listing that I studied for two months before we moved, mentally furnishing it over and over....

I knew that it was a large enough room that I could fit a lot of our furniture in different areas for different activities. And I knew instinctively that our stuff would look right at home here, maybe even better than in any house we'd ever lived in before.

I knew that the red sofa we had made at Ethan Allen in 2004, waiting six months for it, would be perfect here, and that the green dining table we'd had since 1965 could back up to the sofa and be pulled out for company all around it, and even extra leaves put in. 

I knew that the green china cabinet that RH "antiqued" when we were newlyweds, my parents' old china cabinet, would have the perfect niche.

And I knew that the bronze Basset hound that I had to have from my sister's shop (HERE) would sit in the front window of this house where five Basset hounds had previously lived. A fact I adored as it reminded me of our beloved Betsy. 

And I knew that my mother's old wristwatch needed to go around her neck...

I knew that the old sunburst clock I ordered from England years ago would look amazing on these knotty pine walls...

And I knew that the two ugly ceiling lights needed to vamoosh, soon...

I knew they both needed to be simple ones that matched--RH has already put one up and I have hopes of getting the other one put up this weekend....

I knew these would look perfect with our silver arc floor lamp that adds a contemporary touch to this 1935 knotty pine room....

I also knew that the brass ceiling fan would have to go but that may take a while. RH LOVES ceiling fans--is it a guy thing? But he's been so cooperative with my honey-do list for me to push that idea, yet.

What I don't know, what neither of us know, is what to call this everything room. Maybe you can think of something?

I hope to do a post soon of our kitchen. Don't be expecting granite countertops and stainless steel appliances in it, my friends. It is a galley kitchen that was a little bit on the plain side, but it has a huge window over the sink that made my heart go pitter-pat. 

My goal in the kitchen has been to make it pretty, without the expense and bother of a renovation. And obviously to have it be an efficient place to cook.

RH and his brother spent three weekends and other odd hours building and installing a pretty and practical piece that transformed the kitchen for me. I smile every time I look at it. I hope you will too!

Here's a tiny piece of it to pique your curiosity...

"Our private house should be a reflection of ourselves,

our way of being in the world,

what makes us distinctly different from one another."

Rose Tarlow

Those of you who know me well, as I believe so many of you do, probably understand why I keep telling you how much I love this house.

For this time of my life, it is so very much me, so very much us.

I hope you don't get tired of me telling you how much I love this house here on Dewena's Window because I don't think I can help myself. I am foolishly head-over-heels in love with a house.

Isn't that a sublime feeling to have?