The Dining Room

it's time to bite the bullet and share some before and after photos with you!

i've been holding out, but that's just because i don't feel like anything in complete yet.

i'm going to go ahead and reach for a B- here and accept that perfection isn't necessary!



so these pictures are of my dining room.  the dining room and attached office/den/livingroom (how do you know which one is which?) were the first rooms i painted.

when we moved in, they looked like this:

i had more than one issue with these rooms.  mainly, the red. on just half of the walls

(and do you see that red was painted up on the ceiling? yuck.)

and then there was the wallpaper border. i'm sure it looked good with someone else's things, but not mine.

this is the same little nook you saw on the right in the before photo.

i chose a color palette before i painted, and the dining room is a bit darker in color than the office/den/livingroom.  i was shooting for a grey undertone, but ended up with more of a slate blue hue. i've never been a blue girl, but i am loving the feel of this color and scheme. it blends nicely with the kind of yellows i'm drawn to.

i spent almost two weeks re-working these rooms.

first the wallpaper had to come down.

then the walls were painted.

then the trim was painted, and color then edged back on.

then the ceilings were painted,

...and here is where i learned my first major lesson in this house;

alwaysalwaysalways paint ceilings and trim before walls. especially ceilings!

so then i went back again to edge the wall color against the newly painted ceiling.

that was a lot of edging! twice.

but it's done, and i'm at peace in these rooms,

and my eyes like what i see!

and all is right in the world...

until i walk past that sea-foam green den!