The Heart of the Home

The Heart of the Home is the Dining Room. It's a big room -- far bigger than the kitchen.

And for the first 87 years of Linderhof, it was the place where one had breakfast and lunch as well as dinner on a daily basis. There was no casual eating place for the kitchen is by far too small.

Looking from the breakfast room into the dining room and into the living room just beyond. For 87 years this was a window, not a door. But this would have been the view had you peeked in that window!

There is a Sheraton dining room set with shield back chairs. We've had them "forever" but they aren't antiques but rather 20's or 40's reproductions of that classic style.

Standing in the kitchen door, this is the view of the dining room -- the table and chairs, the rug, the chandelier which was a real find and was so heavy that we had to have the ceiling reinforced in order to hang it. There is a Sheraton sideboard which we adore and which came with the table. You can see our mirrored Victorian armoire which holds my Spode blue and white plates and Husband Jim's glassware. There is the iron and marble sideboard and then the antique Asian armoire which holds my Waterford, my china serving pieces and my silver trays.
This is the view from the living room and you can see the breakfast room beyond that door. That door that was for so long a window that matched the one on the left side of the sideboard.

Linderhof is a symmetrical house -- which is why the pair of windows and the pair of doors in the dining room.

The clock is a Bombay piece and although most think that it's a valued antique, it's really battery operated and the door opens not to reveal clock "inards" but rather my collection of salt and peppers and candles for the table.
If you stand in front of the dining room windows you see the twin doors -- the door on the left to the kitchen and the door on the right to what was originally a closet but is now our powder room. A real brick fireplace is between. On top is most of the soapstone which I've collected for a while.
The most prized possession in the dining room is the picture over the sideboard. It was done by the art professor at the University of Tai Wan and is done on fabric. Husband Jim bought it when he was 19 at an art gallery in Tai Wan when he was on R and R from one of his Viet Nam tours. It's always hung in any of our houses -- usually in the dining room. We call him the Green Man although he's a much muted green than he was.

On the dining room table is one of my big blue and white Oriental bowls and some silver candlesticks. The bowl is usually empty although if we're having a dinner party, it can be filled with flowers.

When the dining room was the eating spot, we always had flowers on the table but once we built the breakfast room, I do as my mother did and leave flowers off the dining room table unless there is company.

It's Monday and time to Show Your Cottage Monday with Cielo at A House in the Roses. I'm sharing Linderhof's dining room.