Landon Lane, Orange, Virginia

October 13, 2014

Landon Lane, Orange, Virginia

Hello readers! If today's house looks vaguely familiar to you, it's because you might have seen it on the blog Hooked on Houses last week. Julia posed the question, "How would you fix up this old house in Virginia?" Lots of people responded, so armed with their ideas plus the inspiration intact in this 1912 charmer, I decided to give it a whirl.

On the front porch, the vote to add rockers and a porch swing was popular, and I figured a little fall color (and a cute doggie) would seal the deal.

{Better Homes and Gardens}

The kitchen has period charm, and most commenters wanted it to stay intact.

Here's some ways to up its period charm a little more:

{Sharon Lovejoy}

I want to bring in Craftsman gray-green paint to work with the existing cabinets. Here's another before view for reference:

The dining room looks like it needs new flooring and some inspiration:

It could look like this:

{Arts and Crafts Homes}

Since the inspiration photo is a little dressier than our space, I created a quick mash-up of the two dining rooms to see the possibilities:

The wallpaper border above the fireplace is called Birchwood Frieze by Bradbury and Bradbury.

The living room brings to the forefront a common debate-- paint the woodwork or restore it?

I'm advocating both approaches, as beautifully demonstrated below:

{Hooked on Houses}

I also like this furniture arrangement, and how it continues the new color palette from the rest of the house. The window trim can be left white, and the existing original wood finishes restored, such as in the entry, below:

In terms of decorating this entry, I'd just flip-flop the rug and wall colors, like so:

{Better Homes and Gardens}

Going up our now beautifully restored stairs, we'll take a peek at one of the 3 bathrooms:

Some of Julia's commenters mentioned how Nicole Curtis from the HGTV show Rehab Addict could work wonders with this house, and I think this bathroom proves their point: