In this post I told you about how my itchy fingers had uncovered a beautiful stone floor in the dining room hidden under a brown carpet. Well the dining room is taking shape, but that doesn’t stop me from making plans for the rest of the house.
Our home used to belong to a local doctor and here in France the doctor’s surgery is often in the residence of the practitioner. It use to be two separate houseus, with the second, smaller houses knocked through for the doctor to use as his office. It’s this room that we intend to turn into a kitchen one day, with the current kitchen becoming the family dining room.
The ‘kitchen’ has a ceiling made from some kind of large tiles. It looks a little industrial to be honest. I’ve been wondering for some time what’s underneath it. It’s been jam packed with things after we moved and I’ve been going into it, selecting items, then moving them elsewhere for some time. Yet there was still lots in there and as the children are off school I decided I’d set about clearing as much down as I can (my thinking is, whatever I do in the house in terms of cleaning up they’re immedtaly going to undo, so I keep my cleaning at a basic level to save my sanity).
Whilst in there I decided to have a little look see and underneath these…..
there is this….
My plan is to carefully take it down, marking each section as I go, and then using it as a ceiling in the garage beneath my husband’s office. As there’s thick insulation as well as it should be of benefit to him there for keeping the heat in.
There are two things my mind is turning to now; whats underneath the laminate floor (many old houses have tiled floors) and what am I going to do with those beams. For the latter, of course, Pinterest is my friend. Here’s what I’ve discovered.
As the beams are already painted I’m going to have to stick with white as the idea of stripping all of them is just depressing. This is the first picture I liked with whitish beams, though the colour is a little too light and seems to be a whitewash rather than solid paint. But the pale green contrasting tongue and groove walls are great and add interest in a mainly white kitchen. The cupboards are fitted though and, although I’ve thought of buying second hand cupboards and painting them, this would still mean fitting the kitchen. However in the brocantes near here there are lots of old, freestanding kitchen furniture I’m starting to think this be an inexpensive solution.
These images aren’t of a kitchen, but as we want the family dining room next door they’re making me wonder what’s underneath that kitchen ceiling (mmm, I must go and have a look). I wanted to include the one on the right in particular because I love that stone floor. There are only electric heaters in the soon to be kitchen, and if there are no stone tiles underneath the laminate we’ve discussed laying our own with underfloor heating. It’s not too expensive and you can turn it on and off, so there’s potential.
I love these bench islands and I’m hoping to find something similar. Both of these kitchens are fitted, but I love the rustic feel of the baskets don’t you?
The island in this one is made out of an old buffet, and again the way the tongue and groove walls are painted with pale green looks really good against the beamed ceiling. A lot of the walls in this old house, like many in these ancient stone homes, are very uneven. So I know there’s no way I’ll be able to paint without a plasterer, which could be pricey.
As I’m sticking to a tight budget I’ll probably go for tongue and groove on three, if not all of the walls. The fourth wall, well, I’ll be interested to know what’s underneath the wall paper. Some rustic stonework? It could look pretty good having one wall with exposed brick maybe. We’ll see.
Back to finishing the dining room, the house front is coming together and I’m starting to add some touches to the front hallway. I know, I know, I should stick to one room at a time.
By the way, you can follow my Pinterest boards throw the link at the top of the page.
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