The Dining Room: The Chairs

The furniture that is going in my newly painted dining room comes with history.  It belonged to my grandparents for about 37 years, and now it is mine.  I know that I’m lucky to be able to keep it and keep a part of my grandparents, but at the same time I’m still very emotional about the reason it is now in my house.  My grandpa passed away in 1991, so over the years I've come to think about the furniture as my Grandma's.  Only now, do I remind myself that it was theirs together.  I know it was something they worked hard to save up the money to buy. 

My grandmother passed away in December and I’m still battling the feelings of how it should be in her house with her there, rather than my house.  I can’t change that, so what I did decide to do is give her furniture an elegant room to reside in.

In the blank slate post I had posted the picture of the gorgeous fabric that I had bought for the curtains, valance and to cover the chairs with.  Thank goodness for half off sales, because it wasn’t the cheapest fabric they had, but it was the one I kept going back too.  Sunday while my mom was sewing the curtains, with as much non experienced help as I could give her, she said that my grandma would be proud of the work I’ve done on the dining room.  That means alot.

Ah, but this post isn’t about the curtains, it is about the chairs.  Meet the dining room chairs.

Grandma had many grand kids and great grand kids to help dirty up the chairs over the years.  I figured the best thing to do would be to recover them.

As with many projects it isn’t until you get started that you realize that there is more work to be done than you had thought there was.  At some point over the last 37 years two of the boards that the seat cushions were made to were cracked.  Out best guess is that someone stood in the chairs or something.  I am so very fortunate that my daddy is handy and comes with tools.  He cut out and fixed up me some new wooden bottoms for those two chairs.

When we were removing the blue covers on these chairs, this is what we found under them.  

Isn’t that just the loveliest color?  We had some debate on it, momma calls it gold, but me, I think it is more of a yellow green color.  While the blue was removed, we did leave the original, umm color on there.  Maybe when someone else decides they don’t like the covering I have on there, they will also get a kick of the lovely color hiding underneath.

Now for the finished product, the lovely chair with it’s pretty brown, blue and gold striped material…

I love them!  I also think grandma would love them as well.

I can’t express how lucky I have to have parents that would give up their Sunday afternoon to help their home improvement challenged daughter recover seat cushions.

Now I’m off to talk to my brother about another projects I want to work on…

I'm linking this up over at Delightful Order.

I've also linked up at Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After Party 

and Elements Interiors - Whassup Wednesdays.

The Dining Room: A Quick Peak

I week ago, I posted about my Dining Room, and the clean slate I was started with.  I’m happy to say that Saturday I did have some moments while painting when I was really enjoying myself.  I loved the color blue I had chosen and that just left me feeling happy.  Of course after two long days which ended in very late nights, and paint that wanted to stick to tape rather than the wall, I was pretty much done in Sunday night when I feel into bed after 2am.

I really wanted to move the furniture in today and spend the weekend filling the curio and china cabinets.  Unfortunately because I haven’t been able to check everything off my list, I’m not ready for that yet.  I think after the late nights last weekend, followed by a sore back and working during the day, I misplaced my motivation.

A quick peak at a before:

This is what a girl does late at night when she is running out of primer but hopes to get the top color at least started before going to bed.  Unfortunately, I had the slowest drying paint last weekend, and I went to bed with the walls looking like this.

And this is where I am now.  My Balmy & Leisure Blue on the wall, separated by my pretty chair railing, which will get its final coat of paint tonight.

Before this time next week I hope to have pictures that actually have furniture in them.  But since my before pictures didn’t and because I am proud of what I have done to this point I am linking up over at A Bowl Full of Lemons to share my progess so far.

The Dining Room: Work in Progress

My main focus this weekend was painting the Dining Room.  Only problem was that while I was focused on that room, I totally let my daily items I had been working on slide.  I’m not going to let it get to me though, since I know I’ll get back on track.

Not to mention that this weekend I did:

1. Worked once again on priming the paneling.  Was running out of primer so I did the top two thirds of the room. (Friday)

2. Went to the paint store to buy more primer, went to the lumber store to pick out chair railing, and went to get my brother’s breakfast (Saturday)

3. Started from the beginning on priming the wall my brother had to replace the paneling on. (Saturday.)  I also primed the bottom half of the room.

4. Cut in and painted the two coats of my top color. (Saturday)

5. Marked and taped off where the chair railing would be going.  Taped off the baseboard. (Sunday)

6. Painted two coats of white on the chair railing molding. (Sunday)

7. Painted two coats of primer and a coat of white on the trim for the door way. (Sunday)

8. Painted two coat of white on the crown molding.  (Sunday)

9. Cut in and painted the two coats of my bottom color. (Sunday)

10. Spent at least 45 minutes cussing while trying to remove the tape from the baseboards.  Ended up having to go around with a knife before I could pull the tape and still had to make a dozen repairs. (Sunday night at about 12:30 am)

11. I also washed my sheets and blankets and was putting them back on the bed at 2am so I could fall into bed and get some sleep.

The paint dried at a snail’s pace this weekend, and I think that was part of the issue with the baseboard tape, since the tape I put down for the crown molding worked perfect.  Oh and the top section of the bottom coat that I taped off, that would be hidden under the chair railing?  It came off perfectly.  Go figure!

For some reason in my head I keep thinking that I only have a few things to do and the room will be done.  When I start laying it all out though, those few things seem to really add up.

1. Paint the trim and baseboards.

2. Put a quick coat of paint on the chair railing after my brother installs it for me.  Hoping he caulks it too.

3. Decide which color I am painting the ledge between the kitchen and dining room.

4. Pull up the cardboard and tape from the floor.

5. Sweep the floor.

6. Beg the guys to move the furniture into the room for me.

7. Decide how many leafs I want to put in the table and where I will store them if I don’t.

8. Put the dishes in the china cabinet and decide what will go in the curio.

9. Hang the mirror.

10. Wait for Momma to sew the curtains and valance.  Then recover the chair cushions.

11. Figure out what decorations will be going in the room.  Guess it is time to start looking for ideas there.

I’ll be totally happy if I can get 1-9 of those done by this time next week.  Nine and ten will come in time, and I’m okay with that.

I also need to make my menu plan, decide if I am going to the grocery store this week, catch up on dishes plus other daily/weekly items, and wash clothes.

Right now the list seems never ending...

The Dining Room: A Blank Slate

 I’m really enjoying the whole painting the different rooms in my house thing.  Okay, well to be honest I hate everything between deciding you want to paint up too the pulling off the last bit of tape.  Maybe hate is a strong word, we will go with strongly dislike.  But to me all the steps involved with painting are just necessary evils of wanting a change.  Seeing how I can’t afford to hire someone else to do it, I just have to suck it up, and do it.

I will say that I hate caulking with a passion!  I’m sure it is mostly because I don’t really know what I am doing and I get it all over my hands and that stuff just doesn’t wash off easily.  If it wasn’t for that, I might actually, sort of be able to, get into one of those relaxed, enjoyable states of mind while paining.

I do however enjoy the end result, and I know that because I did it myself I can take some pride in that, as long as you don’t look too closely.

I like the time right before you start the project.  You know when the room is cleaned out and it is just a blank slate waiting for you to put your mark on it?  You get to just stand back with ideas and plans going through your head.  This is what I got to stand back and look at last week…

When I decided that I would be painting the room I headed to the fabric store to get some ideas of what I would want for curtains in the room.  I knew I also wanted to recover the dining room chairs so I decided making my own curtains would be easier than buying ready made them trying to match that to fabric for the chairs.  Well let me clarify, I don’t sew, but my momma does and she got volunteered to make curtains.

While there were a few fabrics that caught my eye while looking one stood out at me and I kept thinking about it all the way home, and the next day.  I knew then that it was the one I wanted.  I lucked out because when I went back to buy it I found it was 50% off, which was a great thing, because I wouldn’t have been able to afford it other wise.

With the fabric in hand I had to do the fun thing of picking out colors.  Maybe it’s the too many colors to pick from or that I’m afraid I’ll pick the wrong color, but this is one of the hardest things for me.  I’m working on reminding myself as long as I am happy, who cares, and trying to avoid everything being super matchy matchy.

Meet my colors:

Balmy & Leisure Blue

(I had intended to open the cans and take a picture, but I kept forgetting, so this above will have to work for now.)

The only thing I know for sure that is going in this room is a mirror I pulled out of the middle bedroom.  It was one of those clearance buys.  Something I bought really cheap and thought I’d have a place for it one day.  We shall see if that day has come. 

I want an elegant room, especially with the furniture, so I’ll be on the hunt to see what I can find that fits with that.

Stayed tuned!  In the near future I will have more pictures of this project to share.