Dining Room Renovation

Well we are a month in to the New Year now, and my batteries are recharged.  So on to a new project – it would be getting the garden into shape but the weather is just too awful at the moment so I have decided to do something major indoors.

Our Dining Room is one of the largest and grandest rooms in the house.  At the moment it looks superficially ok, which is why I have left it largely undisturbed until now.

But all is not well.

The lower part of the wall is Lincrusta (a sort of very thick Victorian wallcovering made with sawdust and linseed oil) and it is literally falling off the plaster in places.

The woodwork is in general sound, but at some point (I am guessing 1970s) someone started “renovating” it.  It was probably original painted, but the paint has been very inexpertly stripped off and then stained an ugly orange “natural wood” effect.

This has even been done on the ceiling.

The beautiful bay windows have been left sadly half stripped.

And lastly, a wooden fireplace has been put it to replace what would probably have been a cast iron original.  The surround is not too bad, but an ugly panel and vent has been stuck in the middle.

So the plan, starting this week is to rub down all the woodwork and stain it a proper dark oak colour to match the grandfather clock.

Remove the Lincrusta and replace it with Anaglypta – although Lincrusta is still made it is very expensive and requires a specialist installer.  Paint it the same dark green as before.

Tile the panel in front of the fire in ceramic tiles (I will then put an antique log basket in front of it).

Paint the ceiling, including painting the beams the same colour as the rest of it.

I think this will take me a couple of weeks and in total cost a few hundred pounds for materials – better than the several thousand it would cost to get it done professionally.