The changing of the season prompted Matt to give our dining room an elegant update a few weeks ago. We have long been fans of Victorian and Edwardian style homes, having lived in the latter type for more than a decade. Our new home, however, was built in the late 1970’s and does not have all the fancy moldings and millwork tied into the Victorian era. So, it helps to have a handy husband who also appreciates a beautiful well-crafted home.
While he did have ulterior motives – citing the need for a new backdrop for his chairs – I was ready for a new wall colour. Now that we’ve been in our home for over a year, the excessive amount of grey walls has become a bit tiresome. Likely painted to make the house more saleable and buyer friendly, five out of the eight rooms were grey. And although I appreciate an understated neutral like grey, I want my dining experience to feel a little warmer and less drab. The grey was just not cutting it anymore.
Back in April, we purchased this fine dresser off of Marketplace, which now has a home in our dining room as a sideboard.
You can see that the wall behind it is a very light warm grey, which is carried over into the kitchen and the living room. The one wall to the right of the sideboard is a dark grey which was the same grey used on the main wall in the family room and hallway leading into it. Eventually, we will be painting these other walls different colours. For now, though, the focus was the dark grey wall in the dining room.
The darkness of the grey was competing too much with some of Matt’s chairs when photographed, in particular the Osler and the Ponteix. But Matt did not want a bright white wall, nor did I. Since the sideboard was painted this pretty green, we wanted to get a colour that would complement it and any future chairs or furniture that Matt made.
After a bit of trial and error (meaning asking Matt to pick out some paint chips on his own, unsuccessfully from Home Depot), we eventually both agreed on this beautiful olive colour. That was probably the easiest part of this makeover.
Matt had the harder task of priming the wall without three curious kitties derailing the whole situation…
He was able to construct a makeshift room with a large heavy duty tarp he happened upon at Home Depot. This mostly kept the kitties out, along with the help of some green tape.
I think when it came time to apply the actual paint, we put them in our bedroom, just so there would be no major incidents involving kitties and paint, or an irate husband.
He also had to craft and install ten picture frame moldings, a chair rail and the baseboard.
He chose to spray the wall, for a smoother and faster application. Because the drywall underneath is buckling a bit and the previous paint layers weren’t fully sanded down, there is some differences in sheen apparent.
But now there is better distinction between Matt’s chair (seats) and the background. And some things can also be tweaked in Photoshop if needed.
The adjoining walls will be painted soon hopefully – maybe this weekend, seeing as it is another long one here in Saskatoon – since the dining room doesn’t look complete now. I’m thinking a cream or off-white colour, like this. That would definitely make it more elegant and inviting!
Now if we could only do something about all the popcorn ceilings in our house!
