Halloween Art Gallery: 2023 Project

This year one of my home projects is to redesign our Halloween art gallery. That's what I call the room that used to be our dining room. We live in a mid-to-late nineteenth-century house that was built by someone who meant well, but didn't have all the necessary skills. You know what I mean: no right angles, a tilted floor, cock-eyed windows, no closets, and odd sized rooms. I call them the prominent character defining features.

The small room off of our kitchen never seemed to serve us well. It started as a dining room, but my inherited dining room set from my grandparents was just a bit too large for the space and I always felt claustrophobic there. I moved the dining room to our double-parlor and it has remained there since.

My next idea was to make the small room into a drinking parlor with a bar and a trestle table, but who's kidding who? Our entire house is a drinking parlor! It wasn't until I started running out of room to display my Halloween art collection that I realized I could make the tiny space into an art gallery of sorts.

It has slowly evolved over the years with tables and displays cabinets coming and going and last fall I realized I again didn't have enough room for my collection! When I looked around, I realized that there is no more space in our house for displays (especially with two active kittens in the house) and that there was probably wasted space in the gallery. I also had come to dislike the orange color I had chosen for the walls- it's just too peachy, and quite frankly there is no place to sit in the gallery. We really just come into the room and stand there and look at things occasionally. 

So, my 2023 project is to revamp the space. My needs are more space to display my collection so that it can stay up year round, a new wall treatment, and enough floor space to continue doing my morning yoga practice. My wants are for a cozy corner to read a book or have a cup of tea (kidding- cocktail.) That's a tall order for such a small space. It's going to be a challenge.

I'm planning on taking you with me through my design process. A practice that usually involves a lot of trial and error until it all falls into place. Every week, I'll pop into the blog and give you an update on my progress. I'm hoping the blog keeps me accountable to getting it done sooner rather than later, but I realize this project will most likely take months.

Here are the "before" pictures- taken this fall when I first realized that something had to be done. 

I've already started making a few changes like new curtains and another display cabinet and I'll show you those next week along with some wall displays that have caught my eye.