ANNNNND WE'RE BACK (in Connecticut, that is, at my girlfriends project). On the initial viewing of the house, my girlfriend went NUTS when she saw this porch, and we both vowed to screen it in the first day she took possession so we could enjoy mosquito-free mojitos! Then I did it again...opened my BIG mouth to create yet another huge (not really) project. When I examined the roofline I noticed that it pitched a bit and immediately pictured a fantastic, dramatic dining room. Once again, she loved the idea, so we started pulling down the tacky vinyl siding, which to our surprise revealed a nice pitch in the roof. To save money we repurposed the door from the living room to the porch and added four windows we bought off the floor from the Home Depot (we squeezed them together to look like two large windows, a savings of thousands of dollars..and a blog I did a few weeks ago). We found an incredible chandelier at Lowe's (yet again another blog from a few weeks ago), added wood floors (when installing ontop of concrete we started with a protective layer, then added plywood and placed the unfinished red pine on top of those). Because we added shiplap tongue-and-groove to the new foyer and in the basement, we thought an accent in the dining room tied it all in...we will be staining a light grey in one of the final steps and painting brick high-gloss white. COST: While the floors came in at a whopping $850 with all materials, the most expensive part of this room was brining in my plumber an electrician to add two new outlets and bring the heat in from the existing living room. The total for a new 200 square foot dining room? Right around $5,000. If you're keeping track, we are still WAY under the air-conditioning budget and have three new HOT rooms...stay tuned for MORE!
