Renovation: The Living Room and Cocktail Corner

Part 2: The Cocktail Corner

Cozier, but now seats more.

The dining nook became the cocktail corner, sort of by accident. We replaced the original faux farmhouse table with a much smaller table we got from the proprietors of the oldest Hütte on the mountain. It’s a super cool old little table, but it certainly makes things cozier. But for cocktails, I reasoned, this is more than fine.

We’d been looking a long time for a table and had gotten nowhere until we asked someone on the mountain to help us find something with “Hüttenerfahrung” or a bit of mountain experience. They did one step above that. When we went to  thank them, the wife smiled and said with a wink that the table had tons of experience – including plenty of good times for them in their kitchen. What that really means, was purposely left open to interpretation.

At first I wasn’t sure if the table’s size was going to be a problem or not. But then I realized that we don’t normally have more than two people over for breakfast at a time, and dinner almost always takes place somewhere else on the mountain (or if we’re honest: on the couch in front of the TV). The new adjoining green leather benches makes it easy to have up to eight people for cocktails, so prosit!

The beer made it manly enough for my father-in-law.

The two farm chairs were eBay finds. Both are 90+ years old but surprisingly cheap at about 20 Euros a piece.  With a little TLC from our carpenter they’re steady and good as new.

So far the best thing I've gotten out of Nürnberg

I’ve been wanting a crystal chandelier forever. But we never had an old apartment with high ceilings. When we bought this place I told Oliver, damn the low ceilings I’m still getting one. After losing countless eBay auctions trying to score a cheap lamp from a store in Berlin, I happened to find one in the antique store down the street around the corner from us in Nürnberg. We still need to lengthen the chain a little, but I love it.

Ok. The wall. It’s pink.

I think the shade is called Rock Candy...or Princess Bubblegum. Whatever.

The painter was flabbergasted. The carpenter was horrified. The electrician figured this was a lame girly notion of mine. It’s a small mountain, so pretty much everyone has seen or heard about this wall. It’s a love or hate thing.

I love it, but I have to admit that this was my husband’s idea. The original inspiration came from a fabulously funky spa hotel in Bad Gastein, that some very dear friends  of ours have made their home away from home. We’ve joined them there a few times and took more than a few good ideas back with us, including this wall.

The horns were rescued from the estate of a hunter up north near Bremen. My mother-in-law snatched us a basketful of little ones too that are still looking for a spot.

…and here’s another ancient doily and the deer motif.

And there we have it. Renovation – done. Decoration – still a work in progress, but far enough along that I’m checking it off anyway.

Fin (for now)!