Our Collected Home-Part Two

Ciao amici! Our house tour continues with a walk through the kitchen and great room. As with so many families, this is the heart of the house, where we spend most of our time cooking, eating, relaxing, doing homework, or watching tv. If you missed Part One of the tour, HERE it is.

 The Kitchen Bay. 

The table was a hand me down from a friend.  I slipped my parent's old upholstered chairs in a quilted bedspread from TJ Maxx. The wood chairs came from a yard sale and I painted them Paris Grey and upholstered the seats with an embroidered lattice. The walls are scratch plaster and the drapes are made of ivory burlap and a chevron panel cut up for contrast. The chandelier and custom pom pom shades are from our house in Italy. I LOVE art, and this painting was a steal at Lakewood. As luck would have it, it's a cataloged work from a Calistoga artist. That's Dixie...she is 7 today! Photo by Lauren Rubinstein

 I love unique lamps.  This one of a pair that we made from a cast iron urn and copper piping which I fill with seasonal greens. We drilled right through the travertine counter tops so there are no unsightly wires. The plate rack was custom made in Italy, and the wine bottle candle hurricanes are part of my dad's collection.

Photo by Lauren Rubinstein.

La Cucina
We recently upgraded our counter tops and backsplash to Brazilian Travertine.  (Legacy Granite in Alpharetta did a great job, and I would highly recommend their services. If you go, please tell them I sent you!) The ancient microwave left the house to make way for the hood. It took a bit to get used to life without it, but I am so glad that big cancer box is GONE. The white planking behind the island is new, and the bar stools got cut to counter height with a new coat of paint and imperial trellis seats. We also installed a new marble farmhouse sink, bridge faucet and push button disposal (so cool!). The circa 1991 appliances and cabinetry stayed, but I don't mind them too much, as they blend in, still work, and the range is so old now, it  almost has a cute vintage look.

The Wine Bar

Open shelving for glassware was achieved by simply removing the cabinet doors and painting the interior. I also removed the lower doors and replaced them with a linen skirt. The terracotta relief from Impruneta depicts Bacco, the god of wine. It was a gift from my husband nearly twenty years ago.

Corbel Detail
The large overhang of marble needed some visual support.  I got these crusty beauties from Kemp Hickey's hanger. He also shows at Scott's in the North building.

Farmhouse Sink

I purchased the white travertine sink from Floor and Decor in Roswell. The island base behind it was scouted in Florida eight years ago, and then we added the noce travertine top. This is where we do a lot of our kitchen prep work. The antique iron gate serves a functional purpose as well as an aesthetic one: to keep the doggie out of the dining room!

The Great Room

Two large slipped sofas face each other with the Italian travartine coffee table in the middle. I added antique European shutters to the tall windows to give the space a little age and warm up the 20 ft.tall room. The round table is vintage, with a bleached top and green base. The lamp bases came from a church rummage sale.

I picked up the Norwegian painting of the Oslo Harbour circa 1912 at an estate sale in our area. The window pane was a treasure found in an unused room of our farmhouse in Italy. 

The clock came from Ballard's Backroom right after we bought the house eight years ago. It set the tone for the rest of the room.

Vintage objects from my antique booth. The guitar is antique Italian. It is purely decorative, but I loved the reference to Italy, and the fact that both kids play.

Balinese puppet from our honeymoon.

Casa Dei Fiori

Lorenzo and I made this flower house above the mantle many years ago with wood we found laying around the property.  When I started doing Scott's last year, he decided to make them again out of barn wood for sale in the Atlanta area. The vintage check chair was a recent Queen of Hearts find. 

I hope you enjoyed Part Two of our house tour!  Stay tuned for Part Three. Thank you all so much for reading the blog. Your comments are so encouraging and truly make my day. 

Buona Domenica-