Another Small Home Improvement - Our Dining Room

Our dining room got a BIG facelift and I am IN LOVE with this room.  I've wanted to do this for years and years and finally I got it done.  I am absolutely thrilled with how it turned out.  Before it was pretty Plain Jane with basic white walls.  Over the years I'd added trim to the ceilings, around the doorway and replaced what was along the floor.  It has had a few paint jobs as well.  About ten years ago I put in the china cabinet and some trim around the window.

I picked up a new baseboard heater to replace the forty year old one

I removed the old heater and no surprise the wall was disgusting behind it

First wall where I put up the bead board wallpaper

I had helpers!

Chair rail added

Last week during my "staycation" I was able to update the dining room.  I used paintable bead board wallpaper leftover from my entryway project to add wainscoting to the dining room walls.  The chair rail was added to the top and cost me nothing because I'd pulled it out of the FREE WOOD bin near where I work last summer with the idea that I'd use it for some project later down the road.

Trim above the window

I also finished the window trim, don't even ask me why I hadn't done that sooner than now, I have no excuses.  I also added this decorative wood piece I had rattling around in the garage.  After caulking and priming the new chair rail and caulking around the window trim it was ready for paint.

The old ceiling fan comes down

More grossness

Painting trim and the ceiling

Checking out the new paint color - nice!

I painted the wainscoting and all of the trim with Pure White by Behr and then had to wait for three days for all of the paint to dry and cure enough to tape it off.  That was tough, because I really wanted to finish painting those walls, but I knew that if I rushed it I'd be sorry.

Taped off and ready for paint

Oh mama!

Now that's what I'm talking about

Finally I got to tape off the trim and paint the upper section of the walls with a beautiful shade of gray called High Speed Access also by Behr.  And wow did that pop against the white!  So pretty!!

Now the details of the  trim really stands out

I carefully touched up any spots with an artist brush along the trim and corners for a clean finish.  Yes, I'm that ridiculously anal retentive.  But if it isn't perfect it will drive me nuts.  I even took the old tan 1970s phone jack cover outside and gave it a shot of my favorite metallic spray paint to spruce it up.  While it dried I started putting the room back together.

The old heater had been painted over by previous owner and it was in rough shape

So much better!

The youngest and I replaced the old baseboard heater with a new one that is clean, white (not covered in a zillion coats of paint) and much more energy efficient.  This is the last one that I needed to replace too.  The new ones don't streak the walls like the old ones do.

Wowza!

I washed the switch plates and put them on the wall along with the freshly painted phone jack cover.  I put the mini blind back up on the window and the table and chairs back in place.  Surprisingly we were only without our dining room for five days.  I think that was a pretty good turnaround.  

I still need to pick out the perfect dining room light fixture and I have a few ideas in mind, but in the meantime on to the next project!