~Painting Party in the Dining Room~

A Dining Room Update....and the "low down" at our house!

Two weeks of craft shows and painting parties can really wear a girl out! Last weekend was the "Clothesline Fair" in Prairie Grove, AR. I spent the prior week curating what I like to call the "Shabby Chic Farmhouse Collection" @ MD Home. If you would like to see some of the items we created, you can check out our Facebook page here. Adding to those big events were tons of after school activities and running a teen girl all over tarnation on the weekends, for her ever-so-busy school and social life. When you put all that together it equals momma needs a "wee" bit of a break! Ya know what I'm sayin'? (Maybe, next week?!)

I should probably tell you that I may or may not have put 4 shots of espresso into my homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte this morning, as I am drinking it while writing this blog post! :)

And Just to clarify the earlier statements of excessive activities and momma needs a nap, I'm not complaining! I know how fast time goes by and I'm trying to relish every second I have with her, even if it is in the car running her around. (wink, wink)

Even with all the craziness of schedules, comes those moments of pure joy and happiness that will forever be embedded into my mind; like that of our painting party! Why is it that when you add the term, "party", behind a chore, it suddenly becomes fun? Although, now that I think about what I just said, a "toilet scrubbing" party may not be quite the same feeling; am I right?

Don't get me wrong, I love to paint! Painting the dining room, however, seemed like a daunting task, which I will explain in a minute. Garrett and I started painting on Sunday afternoon on Labor Day weekend. My dining room isn't large by any means, but it has a lot of crown molding (ugh, trim work) and a large tin ceiling medallion, which I had to paint around while looking up for an hour. Can you say, major crick in the neck!

We painted steady for several hours and then dropped our daughter and friends off at the movies. We grabbed a bite to eat and then got back at it. Garrett put on some music, to which I sang rather loudly to some Whitney Houston and Frank Sinatra. LOL! Singing makes time go by faster, did you all know that? :) By the time the movie was over for the kids, we had painted most of the trim and the ceiling, minus the detail around the medallion. We took a break to go get the girls, got them a snack and brought them home for a sleepover at our house. It was around 9:30 p.m. when we got home. Once we started painting again, the girls decided to bake, to which I full-heartedly agreed, cause you can't have a "Painting Party" without cookies!

The girls took over the play list and danced like lunatics in my kitchen, all the while laughing hysterically. The joy emanating from my kitchen as well as the sweet buttery smell of sugar cookies made it the best "painting party" ever!

We finished that evening about 11:00 p.m. and I moved some of the furniture back inside. Here is a look at the before.

Now I have to tell you that after painting this room and looking back at pictures of the previously brown walls, I had to wonder what has taken me so long to paint. Not only is it dark but as you can see it was really hard to get a good picture in here! The room seems so much bigger and brighter now that it is painted. I wish I had painted it sooner but, c'est la vie!

These brown/gold curtains you see in the background are going to have to go now since they no longer match my dining room/living room anymore!

This medallion is a beauty. In fact, it's one of the reasons we loved the house so much. We painted the dining room and ceiling a nice gray/beige, which is cleverly called greige. Gray paint can be difficult to pick out because some are either more blue, more purple or beige. The color we chose after about 5 swatches of color, was "Amazing Gray" by Shermin Williams. The color swatch and the paint in the can looked taupe, until you put it on the walls. The lighting in this room changes throughout the day since I get great morning light (the front of the house faces west), and lower light in the afternoon. I'm happy with the color since it has that little bit of beige and it matches everything else in my house so much better. You will notice a variance in color in the pictures in just how the light plays differently on different walls. I always suggest when picking out a color to paint your walls that you try a sample on different walls in the room, for that reason. The new paint is a neutral color that the existing black and cream furniture and dark hardwood floors pop against instead of blending in like before.

I've talked about refinishing my dining room table and chairs for weeks now, hence why they aren't in the space right now. I have been sanding off the many layers of poorly painted latex paint (and yes, I did put a couple of those layers on it); down to the bare wood. I decided on refinishing them in a darker gray but with a french country worn look. I have one of the four chairs done and reupholstered, which I will share today.

Removing that many layers of paint takes a lot of time. I don't like to use chemical stripper, so I have chosen to sand them down completely with my sander and by hand because there are lots of little crevices that you can't reach with the sander tools. I am leaving the stained top on the dining table but re-staining it for a darker, and hopefully, more durable finish to match the hardwood floors.

Some of you may remember the French Country chairs that I refinished a few months ago. Unfortunately, they hadn't sold in the shop, but fortunately for me, I decided to keep them and use them in my dining room.

I have to tell you a funny thing about these chairs! When I was editing the photos for the blog, I happened to notice that the painted ticking stripes on these are different. The funny part is that I never noticed that before! I refinished both of these chairs but probably a week apart and obviously didn't look at the other finished chairs stripes. Wowza! I am surprised that I never noticed this since I'm usually good with detail. Did anyone else notice this before I told you? Maybe that is why they didn't sell in the shop? Although they were never side by side like this so maybe no one noticed? If you want to see how I refurbished these chairs check out this blog post.

I have a leaf for my dining room table that I will be adding to extend it to fit six chairs. The two French Country chairs will go on the ends with the four French Gray chairs in the center. I'm leaving the legs on the dining table white, so that even though it is all a little mis-match, it will still all coordinate together well. I'm super excited to get this done and show you all the finished room. In the meantime, here is a look at the black hutch that I recently distressed and re-waxed.

I also have been thinking about fall decorating once I get the dining room finished. I did buy this one fabric wrapped pumpkin @ Target this week.

Isn't it cute?

I could only find the one pumpkin like this, but I'm going to be on the lookout for more! I will have a blog post on fall decorating and updates on the dining room for you soon!