DIY :: Dining Room Do-Over Part I

We've lived in our house almost 4.5 years and I've painted the dining room 3 times. When we first moved in, we gave pretty much every room a fresh coat. The dining room had a nice chair rail and two-toned walls, which weren't great but they weren't terrible either.

We painted the top half a nice tan that we went wild with and painted throughout the entire house. We re-painted the bottom half similar to the existing color just for kicks.

Fast forward a year (maybe two? I'm not sure…) and we were finally ready to buy a dining room table and utilize the space. But hold on! I must paint again! This time - RED! Yes, red in the dining room. Red is supposed to induce your appetite and help you enjoy your food or so I read online…

I also decided to remove the chair rail while I was at it which was a project in and of itself…

remove, patch, sand, repeat.

Chair rail gone. Bring on the red.

red like whoa... 

A little overwhelming, no? And it doesn't help that the walls actually look pink in these pics but you get the gist - bold, in yo' face red.

Once the paint dried and furniture was delivered it looked a little better. Here it is set for Christmas Eve dinner, one of the handful of times we've actually dined in said dining room:

A few weeks ago I randomly decided that I was hating the red. I mean, it's red. Nothing else in my house (besides Justin's "OU" room, which has a single red wall that he got so excited about setting up when we moved in...) is red. I don't wear red. I don't really consider red to be my color. I'm more of a neutral gal. Tans, blues, grays fill the other rooms of our cozy little home.

I knew I wanted the room bright and light so I scoured Pinterest for ideas and kept an eye out for curtains that could serve as a jumping off point. I found some at Kohls which were on sale (obvi) and Justin agreed that they'd look good in the room. I looked through a bajillion paint swatches, hung up the curtains and decided they matched the original tan of the room pretty perfectly. 

In case you've fallen asleep (and I don't blame you) as this is the longest post everrr, here is a recap - 

1. We've lived here 4.5 years
2. 3rd time painting this room and
3. Painting it the tan for the 2nd time…

It seems a little counterproductive and I should have just left the damn room alone in the first place. Oh well. Onward with the makeover!

In addition to painting the walls, I knew I wanted to paint the baseboards white. We did this when we were getting Gracyn's nursery ready and it made the entire room look updated and fresh. Eventually we'd like to paint the trim throughout the entire house so I figured the d-room would be a good place to start.

When is the best time to start a room makeover, you ask? Well, 3 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, of course! Precisely 30 minutes before the baby wakes up from her nap and at which point she will need you to cuddle, get a snack, change a diaper, get juice, maybe cuddle again and NOT paint baseboards.

With J's help, I got the room prepped and ended up getting the baseboards painted (three coats of shiny, pearly white) and a single wall primed.

Over the course of the week following that fateful Sunday, I got the rest of the room primed and was ready to go to town with Round 2 of tan-ageddon when lo' and behold, Justin decides he's having reservations about going tan yet again.

I think his actual words were, "It's just…a lot of tan…"

Welp. Back to the drawing board - or in this case, the curtains. I went into the garage and pulled out the left-over cans of paint we had from when we painted other rooms in the house. A light blue that we used in our family room and a gray that we used in Gracyn's room. We slapped some of each on the wall and decided to go with Behr's Pewter Mug- the same color we used in G's room.

Ok, NOW we're ready to paint! Two coats of Pewter Mug did the trick and the room was looking as good as new.

This post is getting out of hand and is tooooo long. I think I'm going to split it up seeing as how I started this project 2 weeks ago and it's still not done and to be honest, I'm not sure when it'll be finished! We're making progress - a new light fixture has been added and I'm deciding what to hang on the walls and things like that. If you follow me on Insta you can see more snapshots of the progress with a few pics of G thrown in for good measure because I'm obsessed with 'gramming my life.

Stay tuned for Part II. I'll be sure to post the "after" pics once everything is put together and the room is presentable again!