In what seemed like a fast decision, some time in May I made the bold leap of having the dining room painted. As I've never painted a room even one color, much less two, nor installed a chair rail, I forked over the big bucks for someone who had availability (i.e., needed the money right then) and knew what he was doing. Here are some pictures I took of the event:
Brian moved the furniture away from the walls, covered it over and got to work patching the old plaster, making surfaces event, etc.
He discovered cracks in the plaster I had no idea were there and made them disappear.
Please note the thermostat on the wall with the open cover. This will be important later...
More covering and patching.
At last - a chair rail! Brian and I had a bit of a miscommunication about the chair rail. We had agreed that it wouldn't go on every little corner, nor on the angled bits of the bay window. He took that to mean that it shouldn't go to the ends of the wall everywhere. Luckily I asked about it and he was able to patch it before he finished painting. It's not perfect, and it did require another trip to Home Depot, but at least it's much closer to what I had in mind to begin with.
I came home one day and the walls were green! Amazing!
Brian worked over Memorial Day weekend and finished that Monday. It was great to get the furniture uncovered and back in place. Here you see the chairs against the wall which were the catalyst for the chair rail in the first place and how we knew exactly what height to make it. The marks on the wall made that so simple.
I was upstairs at one point when I heard Brian calling for me. As he started to move the breakfront back, it became unbalanced and the top part threatened to come crashing down (this happened once long ago, early in its life with my family, when it did crash and all of the glassware within broke). The top was securely bracketed to the bottom, but the top part became separated from its base. Brian and I got it back against the wall and left it at that for a while.
In my eagerness to really finish getting the dining room back into usable condition, every so often I would open the upper doors to the breakfront in hopes I could refill it with the glassware decorating my living room. But every time, the situation was the same: I opened the door, the top part began to tumble towards me. A few weeks and another trip to Home Depot later, I came home with some brackets that a friend help me install. The breakfront is now more stable than ever, and once again full of breakables.
Notice how the back of the chairs are just the height of the chair rail. It's so beautiful. The picture also shows the chairs in all of their ripped, orange glory. This is a project I hope to tackle later this week. Stay tuned for more about their transformation...
It was several weeks before I discovered the final point of humour to getting the dining room painted. It seems the cover to the thermostat was flipped open at just the wrong moment. Brian, who is extremely careful in his work, missed a crucial bit. For now, I can simply keep the thermostat cover open, but I think it's time to drag the rest of the green paint up from the basement and finish the job.
1 comment:
The dining room is beautiful - but what do you mean you're transforming the chairs?!? How will we know which chairs we can use if they are not covered in ugly orange vinyl?
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