When we first moved into our home last November, I assured my readers of content galore on all the forthcoming remodeling and DIY projects around the house. Thus far, I have largely failed to deliver on that promise, aside from an early post chronicling the removal of carpets and refinishing of floors throughout the house and another post on an unrelated topic but with a brief mention of our painting the kid’s room and replacing the dishwasher. This dearth of content is not for a lack of work, as we have plenty of ongoing and half-started projects (though in that too, we have not been quite as productive as I would like). In several rooms we have even made a significant amount of headway, when the starting point is considered.
But the problem is that even with all the progress made, the room is never finished. The walls may be sporting a fresh coat of paint, but all the trim needs to be put back up. The furniture might coordinate and be placed just so, but that extra something throw pillow is missing. And so on. It’s hard for me to bring myself to share something online for all to see when there’s still work underway and improvements to be made.
I’ve realized though that, at the rate we’re going, it’ll be a year before a single room is far enough along to be called “done.” It’s one of those areas where I live at the precarious intersection of perfectionism and procrastination. So I’m trying to come to terms with the idea that things don’t need to be in their final, perfect state in order to put them out there. It’s okay to share a work in progress. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll judge myself for the unfinished work far harder than most of my readers will.
With that said, here’s a long overdue update on the house renovations, specifically regarding the latest room to receive a face lift – what is the dining room but is currently used as a sort of extended living area. As we felt that we don’t really need a “formal” dining room, we determined that space would be better utilized as a catch-all for work, rest, and meals. So Nathan sits at the table there while he’s working from home during the day (as the office/spare bedroom is presently being used as our bedroom while we update the master). Most nights we lounge on the couch watching a movie or a show or just reading. And, if needed, the table has leaves that can be extended and extra chairs (on the list of furniture to purchase) can be brought in to accommodate larger gatherings for holiday meals and the like.
But now for the obligatory before and after reveal. Because we were so keen to get rid of the carpets when we moved in, I unfortunately didn’t do a very thorough job of documenting the before state of the rooms. The couple photos that I do have of the dining room in its former glory are taken from the property listing, which show not only the hideous green carpet that the previous owner had for some ungodly reason put over the hardwoods, but also all her furniture in various shades of brown.
As mentioned, we wasted no time in removing the carpets and getting professionals in to sand and refinish the hardwoods, which had at some point prior to the installation of the carpets been painted. The following photos show the transformation of the fir floors, as well as the death of the old and dusty lace curtains that had been left behind.
The floors were finished shortly after we moved in, which means that it only took us six months to get around to painting the walls in here. As you can see, both the living and dining rooms were previously a light powder blue color with textured white ceilings and dark trim in an assortment of not-quite-matching stain and brown paint. For the time being, we’ve decided to leave the ceilings white, worry about the mismatched trim later, and just focus on getting the walls done. On painting day, we made sure to fully cover those lovely old floors, and I taped carefully around all of the trim (a time-consuming and irritating process). That done, Nathan rolled on the first swath of new paint, a rich green-blue by Benjamin Moore called Yorktowne Green.
One afternoon, one and a half rolls of tape, and two coats of paint later, and we were done. The new color is perfect – deep and dark and exactly what we were going for. The hue changes quite a bit throughout the day depending on the lighting, looking more teal or blue during the day and greener as night falls. The dark walls do make the room dimmer at night, which is partially due to the fact that we don’t currently have very good lighting throughout the house, but I prefer the cozier feel anyway.
Despite our satisfaction with how the paint turned out, the room is far from perfect and certainly no where near complete. For starters, we never bought quarter round after refinishing the floors, so there are big gaps where the floorboards and trim meet that are collecting all manner of pet hair and roll-away kid’s art supplies. For obvious reasons then we need to buy some moulding, do our best to match it to the existing trim, and tack it on.
And then there’s the matter of the paint that someone managed to get all over the trim. If you look closely at some of the pictures, you can see what looks like gaps between the trim and the wall that we missed but is actually the old blue paint on the trim, a remnant of the previous sloppy paint job. So we need to go back and try to sand/scrape off the paint in all those areas, as well as touch up a couple spots where some of the new paint peeled off the walls when we (perhaps prematurely) removed the tape.
There is also the furnishing of the room that needs attending to. There’s art to hang on the walls and the television to mount, an area rug and a credenza and a new side table to be purchased, and the light fixture to be replaced. Currently my focus is on a couple upholstery projects, including for the two vintage lacquered Ming chairs that you can see in the living room in the above photos, as well as the carved bench against the bay window in the dining room.
We want to be able to use the bench to sit at the table while working and for occasional meals, but it’s currently not very comfortable since it’s low to the ground and too deep. To fix the former problem, I’ve ordered a second cushion in a navy fabric to sit on top of the existing plastic-encased cushion, which will be reupholstered in a coordinating color. A few good sized pillows in indigo and rust hues should resolve the latter issue – back support and a pop of color all in one.
There will be more to come on those and other projects, but that about wraps up the dining room update for now. Please reserve your harshest judgments until the final transformation is revealed, which will assuredly come at an unknown date far in the future.
