Foxcroft Farm Before and Afters- The morning room

 I think I have mentioned this house has lovely large dimensions. There are a lot of rooms, so it takes a while to figure out what the flow will be, and how you will use each space. Some things are obvious, like a kitchen, and some things less so, like the little room for creativity in the last installment of Foxcroft Farm B&A. 

This house was built in an era of formal dining rooms. Everyone who knows me also knows I love a good sit-down dinner, I have been known to indulge in seating plans and place cards from time to time. I have a formidable collection of china, crystal and serving pieces, flatware, candlesticks, and glassware from cordial to coupe. But, I also know that if we are sitting down to dinner indoors, it will likely be in front of a fireplace, for nothing is cozier or more welcoming. Foxcroft Farm has several fireplaces, but not in this room. It shall never be used for dining, even if outfitted as such. So, what would suit this room? 

This is the view to the front door. You can see how dark the front hall was. I guess I have to do a B&A of that change too! To anyone that misses the 80's, check out those pleated swag valances! 

Light. It would like to be bright. It gets glorious morning sun, but the shutters, wallpaper and light swallowing ceiling treatment don't take advantage of this. The floors are lovely, but the colonial blue trim and wainscot are a direct opposite on the color wheel of orange, and make the floors look rather titian. 

In the colder months, I long for a sunny place to have morning tea, check email, plan the day. The keeping room is brilliant now, but not bright in the morning. It needs lamplight in the mornings, and most of the day. But this room at the front of the house gets sunrise to late morning sunshine. A perfect spot for a cuppa to start the day. 

The corner cabinet is a gem, but is swallowed in the size of the room with all the blue and the wallpaper. The fixture isn't bad, but not warm enough for this room. The floors are, as stated, terrific, and in great shape, except for the sun stained outline of a previous rug. I don't mind that. Past lives and all that. 

Get the steamer ready, this one is going to take a while!

The room was a storage space for our first year+ here at the farm. Tools, extra wood, furniture that was waiting for placement while other rooms were under construction, this room was packed. So, first a clean out. 

I got through most of the things, but when I got down to this pile of wood and trim, I called for help! Thank goodness Huz and Youngest helped with this mess. Some of these boards are 16' long, and relocating them meant a dance into the snug, partway up stairs, and through open front door, back down main hallway, and then another do-si-do in the keeping room on the way to the library- for now. 

Thankfully, I played this little game as a child. The wood is in 13 and has to get to where 6 is on the square....

Most of that wood has now been installed as the creative room flooring and into Tod's Tavern trim out...perhaps the next reveal?

I knew this ceiling was going to be tough. It has a thick slap type treatment, but it has been painted over which makes it even tougher. 

I was not wrong. The piece of furniture i am working above is a heavy cabinet that was looking for a new loving home, and found one- thankfully- leaving me more room to work. 

And work. It took most of ten days to get this room stripped down. 

 

And the aftermath was a disaster! 

Wallpaper and ceiling were a mess. Me too. But, once I got to the mending part, getting the walls smoothed out and the ceiling softened, a sit down break was a welcome reminder of how pleasant this room would soon be. 

As a morning room, this room is all about light, and gentle elegance. It needed to be dressed in white. But, I wanted to really play with the light in here. So, I did something I rarely do, and used a flat paint for the walls. I don't use flat often because it swallows light, and I am typically trying to brighten rooms, and love to bounce the light off the walls and the ceiling. But, the morning sunshine is already bright, so I wanted the walls to have a softness to them, like suede. 

Now, let's chat a minute about picking white paints. It seems easy if you've never done it. But whites are so very different! Creamy, gray, blue undertones, pink or yellow, the choice of white makes a difference. I wanted a clear white, or neutral white. Into the job stepped Oxford White. It is a Valspar brand/ Sherwin Williams color 4026. The trim is my favorite nothing special "gloss extra white". I find if I do all my trim in this color, then I can walk around, once a year, with the can and a brush and fix any dings without worrying about color matching. 

The corner cabinet remained. I thought about putting in a whole wall of cabinetry for my china storage, but this room is delightfully square, and I didn't want to lose that proportion. This meant the corner cabinet could keep it's charm and just get a fresh face. 

The outside of the cabinet was the same blue as the trim, but the inside was a very bright poppy. Such a bold choice! I like bold choices, but this room is meant to be soft and welcoming. 

I also was about to pitch the hardware knobs. They had paint on them and were dark brown with minimal gleam. But, recalling what beauty had been hiding behind the age in the kitchen hardware, I went with my hunch that maybe these knobs were more than what they appeared. So, into the pot to boil for a while and then a good scrub with Dawn, followed by some polish. 

A mini- before and after-

And they are lovely! 

The corner cabinet went white with the inside painted a mild grey-blue that has a hint of periwinkle. It is SW Upward. 

Regular readers of the blog, and those following the progress at Foxcroft Farm will notice I have been having fun with ceilings. There is the pink ceiling in the keeping room, the wallpapered ceiling in the front hall half bath, the blue ceilings, and the trompe l'oeil tray in the snug. The morning room was crying out for its own special gift. Still playing with light in this room, the ceiling elevates it from pretty, to spectacular!

Hard to capture in photos, it is a wonderful feeling in person. Huz was enlisted to help me with the details. Inspired by Miles Redd and Leta Austin Foster, I wanted to give this room a circus tent ceiling, without the circus feeling. I wanted it to be slightly cheeky, not a child's playroom! Plus, the ceilings are not high, and color would have felt heavy above the head. The beauty of inspiration is it unleashes ideas! So, I painted the ceiling in a tent of Oxford White and Oxford White. 

For the first few hours, this really confused Huz. He asked "Let me understand what we are doing. You are painting the ceiling white, with white?" YUP. 

The magic blooms from using a flat, and a satin in the same color. The pattern only becomes visible with light. 

 

Here is the start of the ceiling painting. The chandelier hasn't been taken down yet, so I covered it with a trash bag to keep it from being, well, trashed. Then, a little "mathing", and I started painting the stripes, or rays. You can see the first two rays from the center to the corner. 

 When the ceiling was done, and Huz stood back and looked from the keeping room towards the front porch, he could finally see what we had done. 

"That is so cool!" Yup. 

I wanted to bring the tent stripes out and down the wall just like a proper tent. But, the light hits differently on walls and ceilings. So, the Oxford White/ Oxford White combo did not play on the walls. Instead I mixed the color I wanted- a white with a grey undertone. You can see it in the photo above, but it is subtle. 

To make the tent feel alive, it needed passimenterie- of sorts. So, I gave it a gold leaf  painted "trim." 

Dressing it for mornings was good fun. The chandelier was my great grandmother's. 

The boards on the floor are helping flatten the rug where it had been rolled up since 2020. 

This photo shows a more thorough view of the ceiling.  Both of these photos were taken in the mid morning, and the light is more golden. 

The following two were taken later in the morning on a different day. 

Right now, I am sitting on the love seat, with my computer in the warm brightness of the morning room, cup of tea on the gold stool! 

In this photo, you can see the creative room through the pocket door opening. Kitty likes the sunshine in there too. 

On the back wall of the morning room, my giant mirror has found its home at Foxcroft Farm. I salvaged this mirror from above a mantelpiece in a house that was being demolished next to my workplace in Ohio years ago. It is my favorite mix of shiny and grotty and bounces the warm light around, reflecting this room, the morning room- softly elegant with a bit of cheek!