A little dining room update....

Hi everyone! I am stuck at home waiting for some work to be done on my guest bathroom so I thought I would put together an update. I’ve been working on the dining room, kitchen, my office and the guest bathroom but lets start with the dining room!

I decided to do a wall treatment in the dining room to give it a little flavor. A reminder of the before:

Boring, builder basic dining room with not an ounce of upgrades (except maybe the crown). It was bleh and the first thing I saw when I walked in through the garage. Now ss you all know, I’m a huge fan of trim. I think trim can make any home look more expensive and custom. And it’s so cheap! As usual, I wanted picture frame trim in the house. What I decided not to do, though, was put wood panelling on the wall. As a realtor, everything I do goes back to resale and I think that if someone doesn’t like the trim, it’s much easier to just take it off, fill holes and move on. Much less labor intensive than removing wood panels. Besides, I don’t really care for wood panels. ;) I ran out to Home Depot (which has the best trim IMO) and started adding picture frame moulding to the walls. Actually, that’s not true. I started by trimming out the windows.

Then I added the picture frame moulding.

As you can see, I opted for a two panel design. I saw this in an apartment in Paris and LOVED it!!!

After trimming the windows and adding the trim, I decided to paint. This was the big one - I wanted to paint it black but my hubs and my mom suggested I not go that route. They said it would be too dark and that it’s harsh. So I waited several weeks to paint it because I didn’t know what to do. And then one day decided, what the heck… let’s do this!

If you’ve ever bought new construction, you know the builders use terrible paint/apply it lightly. It took 3 coats to get it done, but I did it.

Next I added a cap to the baseboard to give it more height and changed that hideous light.

Safety note: I had one of those ladders that can be long or folded in half. When I folded it in half, I did not engage the pins all the way. I climbed up the ladder and BAM! It collapsed. Luckily I just sprained my hand really badly and nothing more. And yes, I triple check those pins every time I use that ladder now!

At this point, I would love to show you the after but, alas, the table I ordered broke the first day I got it. The installer didn’t put one of the legs on tightly enough and it broke. The replacement will be here next week and then I can do the big reveal! Woo hoo! One room down!