Let’s get this dining room decorating party started!

This all began with bringing home items from Willie’s family’s woodturning shop. Sadly, everything is being shut down and closed, including his parents’ former residence and the family business.

But from this big life-changing event, we hope to keep and restore items and let them carry on memories with us and our branch of the family.

Willie recruited our Son, Brennen, and his Nephew, Roger to help bring home a couple of antique items that he had requested from the family estate. First is a wooden cabinet that his Dad made when he (his Dad) was in his twenties. Second, an antique RCA Victrola.

I really admire the craftmanship of this cabinet. Truly a one of a kind with hand turned wooden detailed accents. I love the fact that he (Willie’s Dad, Clyde) put red Christmas lights in the cabinet for illumination. This was probably made in the early 1960’s.

Then, this beautiful Victrola.

Isn’t that something?

It still has a record on the turn-table, and there are very old records in the cabinet below.

Very thankful to have these 2 family heirlooms here at Royalview.

Willie and I recently took a drive into Houston to visit the shop, as we’re attempting to get things cleared away, and I happened upon an old picture that was hanging in his Dad’s former office, and asked if I could bring it home. Willie said I could, and the thing that caught my eye about the picture, is the very ornate frame. I thought this would be a great salvage project, and a way to give this beautiful frame a new life in our home.

This frame is so beautifully detailed. You can see why it caught my eye.

I knew immediately upon seeing the frame, that I wanted to give it a white-wash paint effect.

Willie and I visited our local Ace Hardware and picked out a lovely shade of white and a few paint brushes for this project, as well as some other projects that I worked on at the same time. I’ll show you those as well in an upcoming post.

This process is really easy, and it doesn’t have to be perfect, by any means. I just had a lady ask me how I did this, or what type of mixture I used. I only use a water based paint. I keep my paintbrush pretty “dry” and do not load too much paint at one time. With this being a water based paint, it’s very easy to remove any excess with a damp paper towel or cloth. It’s just a matter of lightly adding almost a dry coat of paint, especially to the raised areas, which, on some of the higher point details, I did go heavier on the paint so they would really stand out.

I eye-balled it basically, and decided as I went along, how much I wanted the old paint to show through and how much white I wanted. At first, I thought I would do almost a full coverage of white, but since there is so much detail on this frame, I wanted some of the brown undertone to show through to really enhance the details. Plus, with there being white and brown tones in our dining room, this will be a great piece to bring it all together.

I did not put a top coat on, so that it would have a very old, rustic look.

And even though it has an old, rustic look, I believe it also has a very elegant look.

Once it was dry, I couldn’t wait to see how it looked hanging in our dining room, over the antique cabinet. We had to be very careful. This frame is very heavy.

Willie did a great job getting everything measured and put some heavy screws in the wall to hold it up safely.

The tall lamp you see in the above photo was designed by Willie’s Dad, and made by Willie. A lot of family history and craftmanship in this one room. Which, we also brought home a white lamp that looks just like this one, and put it in a corner in our bedroom. I just need to find a new lampshade.

I love the look of an empty frame on the wall, but for this, I wanted to add a little detail. While we were shopping at Hobby Lobby one day, I saw this wooden leaf cutout and knew it would be the perfect touch, since I also wanted to place a floral arrangement (that I had just put together) on top of the wooden cabinet, and since the arrangement is in a stemmed bowl, I knew the florals would look like they were in the frame.

So what are you thinking…? I’m loving it! But wait, there’s more… Stay with me…

And the full dining room wall view with our new arrivals:

It’s really beginning to look and feel cozy to me. I love how everything is coming together to feel more like home. I am such a nester by nature.

With the look of the antique cabinet, I wanted to bring in some playful elements to lighten the mood. One thing that came to mind was that I would love a white bicycle to put in the cabinet. When Willie and I were at Hobby Lobby, I went to the clearance section, and almost hidden from view, was that cute little bicycle clock you now see sitting on the cabinet. It was broken and the metal was black. We brought it home to fix it up. I was so tickled that I found a little bicycle. I’ll show you it’s story in an upcoming post with the other paint projects.

You just never know what you can find to elevate. I love finding items that I can salvage and bring back to life, that then bring fun new memories and loveliness to our home.

Till next time, I hope you always follow your joy. God is truly good!

Johanna and Willie

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DIY Home Decor Paint Project, White Wash Paint Project, Salvaged Wooden Frame, Dining Room Decor, Antique Decor, Lakehouse Decor, Conroe, Texas