Houseography Link-Up Party

New week, new link-up!  You can find a link to my site at Houseography (and you can check out the link-up party by clicking on the button on the right side of the screen ---------------------->).  This week dining room posts are featured.  You can see my dining room here and here.  Check it out!

A Post From the Past

     One of the first projects we completed in our house was to repaint the dining room.  We weren't complete "paint virgins" since we had painted a few large rooms in our rent house, but we knew that we had lots to learn.  The first thing we did differently this time was to remove the baseboards and the trim from the wainscoting in order to have nice clean edges instead of trying to cut in everywhere.  We also made sure that everything got a nice layer of primer first.  After all the painting was done, the baseboards and trim were replaced with a nail gun/brad nailer.

     We absolutely loved our red dining room in our rent house, so we went with red again in this house, but with lots of white to help break up the darkness.  Beware that with red paint, you will have to paint quite a few coats to make sure it doesn't end up pink.  Don't be scared of the inital color of the first few coats of paint.  In the end, with enough coats, it will end up a nice deep red instead of pink.  We primed with a tinted primer (grey) in order to lower our number of coats of paint, which seemed to help.  However, if we would have known about the Behr paint with the primer already in it, that would have been an even better course of action.

     Again, (the common theme in some parts of this house), the dining room started off very brown:

(You can even see some of the orange/gold-ish color that used to be in the living room in the first pic)

We painted all trim, the door, and the wainscotting Polar Bear (by Behr) and the walls red.  We also spray painted the metal vent at the bottom of the door (our A/C unit is in there) and switched the wooden blinds out with a set of white ones from one of the guest bedrooms since, luckily for us, they were the exact same size (all of them came with the house).  Those changes put us here:

Eventually we also hung the curtains we already had and replaced the chandelier with a garage sale find (you can still find this one brand new at Home Depot or Lowe's) which we purchased new shades for (I think from Walmart) in order to give it a different look.  Here is another "after" pic (without the artwork we now have and the two new pieces of furniture added since):

We think the change is pretty drastic and we definitely love it!

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Since Valentine's Day was on a big Monday night this year, the hubby and I skipped the normal eat-out-at-a-romantic-restaurant thing and decided to spend that money on a few accessories for the house.  (Oh, and it didn't hurt that the piece I've been looking for for a while was on sale at Hobby Lobby!).  See, I've been looking for a corner shelf piece with a bronze finish to add a decorative touch to my dining room.  The room is rather small, so with our large dining room table, we can't fit a big, beautiful buffet (alliteration anyone?) on any wall without making it feel cramped.  We have managed to fit a bar, but that's about the extent of furniture/accessories besides the table and chairs.  So now we have two more pieces of furniture; the corner shelf:

and a side table with a beautiful vase (bought with a gift card to Kirkland's from my girls - Thanks!) which is yet to be filled (still looking for just the right stuff...):

And for those of you who like details, here's a few close ups of the shelf itself (beautiful wood!) and the heart details (perfect for Valentine's Day wouldn't you say?) :

 

Don't worry, I still got flowers for Valentine's Day.  I just got the kind that will live longer (yay!):

Future project for my flower box pending warmer weather :)

Oh, and here's a picture of my cutie patootie Parker and his Valentine's Day present: 



So how did you spend your Valentine's Day? Any interesting stories?