The Krowitz Cottage – Living Room & Dining Room Reveal

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…our home reveal! In this post, I’ll be walking you through our living room and dining room renovation.

Let’s start with the before – by the way, if you haven’t seen the video walk through of our 6 week(ish) home renovation, you can watch it here.

We don’t have many “before” photos of this room, simply because it wasn’t space that required as significant renovations as other parts of the house.

First, the dining room. In almost every room there was an old ceiling fan. We got rid of them all. Not only did they not really serve a purpose in our house (which is very well insulated), they were also pretty worn down. We took inspiration from Danish hygge style with the replacement light fixture we chose for this room, and chose a PH ceiling lamp. The PH lamp was first presented in 1925 by Poul Henningsen. The idea is that it provided a softer, diffused light using a series of layered shades to help disperse the light, yet still conceal the lightbulb.

It’s a relatively small space so we try to make the most of it. We are still sourcing the perfect corner cabinet for this room which would serve as an area to keep pieces like extra glassware, linens, and our antique silver set from Nathan’s grandfather. Like many of the things in our home, our dining room table is a vintage piece we purchased from Facebook Marketplace. If you want to read more about some of my favorite local places for second-hand shopping you can read my post about it here.

During the renovation, we painted the entire house, and we probably spent the most time deciding on the color of this room, and the kitchen. We finally settled on “Scene Stealer” by Behr. It felt warm and earthy. We kept the Wainscoting (the wooden paneling that lines the lower half of the wall), because it is original to the house, and throughout our renovation we strived to keep the integrity of our little 1940s house intact.

Now on to the living room! This room has continuously been our favorite room in the house. We wanted it to feel warm, inviting, cozy – like the room just gives you a big hug when you walk into it. Many of the items you see in the photos were purchased second-hand including the record cabinet (purchased at Once and Again in Durham), Eames-style reclining chair and ottoman (Trosa in Durham), and rug (purchased from Nouveau Central) – just to name a few.

We decided on a neutral color in this room because we wanted to see how we felt about the space over time, since it is the space we spend the most time in. We may eventually paint it a different color, but for now, we are enjoying it just as it is.

Some of my favorite pieces in this room are:

• the Pavo Side Table from Anthropologie – or the Peacock Table, as I call it. It’s incredibly well-made, whimsical, and is a perfect statement piece.
• our vintage record cabinet – our whole record playing setup, actually. The cabinet was a great find at Once & Again, via my friend Cameron (Nouveau Central). We’ve also finally found a record player that we love from Orbit which works seamlessly with our Marshall Acton II speaker.
• vintage bar cart from Union Camp Collective in Raleigh – an amazing vintage and antique store

The living room is also a small room with limited options for furniture setup. Currently, the fireplace, which Nathan stripped, sanded, and stained himself back to it’s original glory, is not a functioning fireplace. We hope, one day, to run a gas line, rebuild the brick chimney, and have a lovely fire to cozy up to. At which point, we may rethink our living room arrangement.

I can hardly believe that we’ve been in this house for over year already. This house has been growing with us and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Be sure to comment with any questions or thoughts – I’d love to hear from you.

And be sure to subscribe – next week – I will be revealing the before and afters of the owner’s suite.