Dining Room Reveal (Finally!)

My fall table scape.

Well, let's see. It's only been THREE MONTHS since I started this redo, but I finally have something to show you! Sometimes, when it's my own home, I can take a long time to get a room done. There's several reasons for that:

1. I'm a perfectionist (UGH!).
2. I want things I can't afford, so I have to come up with alternate ways to get the look...often meaning I have make them (time consuming).
3. I do all the work with absolutely NO help. I don't even ask the hubby, so that's not a reflection on him. His job is so stressful and he hates doing decor/reno stuff so much, that I don't even go there (and then I get fussed at on a regular basis for not asking!).
4. It's not my top priority. I have a family to raise and furniture to redo on the side. My personal home decor sometimes has to come last.

All that aside, I still can't say it's completely finished, but I've kept you in the dark long enough. So, ready to see where we're at? Warning: These are not the best shots I've ever taken by far, but due to time constraints, they're just going to have to work:)

Dining Room - unstaged! This is where it's at folks:)

Then I decided to rotate the table. I've got a problem in this room. That love seat is monstrous and really throws off the alignment in this room, but I've got nowhere else to put it. I'd just get rid of it, except I really enjoy sitting in this room! So, I just keep moving things around hoping somehow I'll find a way to make it work.

The foyer with the newly installed beadboard wallpaper and paint. I'm really liking how this area is coming along. See that fabric just draped over the table? I want more of it, but can't find it anywhere. It's the perfect colors to tie everything together. Eventually I plan to put a buffet here, thus the two buffet lamps siting so close together on a little table!

I'm still not really liking the white walls. I'm thinking they're going to go a shade darker (same as the foyer) and possibly a damask tone-on-tone stencil will be applied when ever I'm ready to look at this room again(!).

I decided to experiment with this room. I've ALWAYS stuck to white moulding and trim work. This time, I decided to switch it up. The walls went a soft creamy white and the moulding got the color. 

A tremendous amount of time was spent trying to decide to take the plunge. It's an open concept house, which means you see the family room, foyer, part of a hallway and part of the kitchen all from the dining room table. I was worried that if I started down the road of painting trim, it would turn into a nightmare as it would eventually drive me crazy that it wasn't all painted the same color. But, finally my curiosity got the best of me and I just went for it. 

I also put blue on the ceiling! Most of the time I've kept the ceilings white, but I love a blue ceiling, so up it went! Like I said, I'm experimenting. I'm still not 100% sure I like the ceiling color with everything else, but I'm going to live with it a while and see how I feel later down the road. One thing I am sure of...I absolutely love this trim color. It's a lucky find (excuse me... devine intervention!). $20 for a five gallon bucket of semi-gloss on the "Oops" shelf! After putting dabs on numerous paint cards, the closest match I've found is Benjamin Moore's Bennington Gray. It's so dead on, that I didn't even see the spot I dabbed on the card until the light hit it right.

via Curbly.com

Now, looking at these photos, I have to remind myself how it could have possibly taken this long to get this far! It's not a complicated room, BUT... What you don't see is the three layers of paint on the main wall, the three layers of paint under the chair rail, the time spent remaking the chandelier, making curtains and slipcovers, the two different sets of curtains I couldn't choose between, and rug hunting all on a non-existant budget! The biggest time killer was the painting, though, by far.

It wasn't until today that it finally hit me why this room has been so difficult to paint. Even though it has a humongous window, tons of natural light and faces east, for some reason, the light that comes in other than first thing in the morning makes it feel cold! Normally a room like that could handle fairly cool colors and be fine. Not this room! It just kept feeling cold and uninviting. It wasn't until I put the Oops! color on the chair rail in the foyer next to the warm creamy yellow above it on the wall that it hit me why I didn't like that room white - even a warm white! It needs a very warm cozy color. Trouble is, it needs to be warm and cozy but not too dark. So, eventually it will probably be painted the same color I have in the foyer and hallways - Behr's Informal Ivory. I'm absolutely loving the combination of that and the oops in the foyer and want to just take it on into the dining room. It's bright, but has a creamy yellow warmth to it...like being wrapped in sunshine. (Ironic! I'm sitting here typing about sunshine while it's night time and pouring rain outside the window!)

Just for fun, I took the current pic of the dining room into Photoshop and tried different paint colors on the walls. The other option...should I ever want to go dark on the walls would be a the warm brown I was planning to use and just haven't put up yet because I wanted to keep it light. Behr's South Kingston. And just for a little more fun, I put black on the walls!

Ummm! Wrapped in chocolate!

How daring would a warm black be on the walls!
If time (and money) was no factor, you better believe I'd try it... just for kicks:)
I know it would look great, but I'm not sure I could live long term with it.

So, what is there left to do? Well...I'm trying to make myself leave the white on the walls just a little longer, but I'm just not feeling it. I am almost certain it'll end up going the Informal Ivory - same as the foyer. I'm also not totally sure I want to leave those curtains. I'm still playing around with some other fabric ideas. The head chairs still have to be reupholstered and EVENTUALLY I want to paint a marsh scene to hang as the main art work.

Well, there you go folks. That's where it's at for now. I've spent way too long thinking about this room. A few more changes are still to come, but for now, it's at a stopping point. I've got to jump back on the furniture bandwagon. I've been down too long. It's amazing how grief and exhaustion can take a toll on your creativity. We're still not out of that stage by a long shot, but all those prayers are renewing my spirits. Thank you!

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