Tighten up!

Now that the dining room is trimmed and painted, I surprisingly have no more large projects in immediate the pipeline.  Shocking, I know. I do have 2 items that are high on my To Do list, however.

The first is studying for the NCIDQ exam.  NCIDQ= National Council for Interior Design Qualification.  Its a 2 day long, expensive exam that I'm still not convinced will help my career, but it certainly won't hurt it.  After 3 years of putting it off, it was time to (pardon my french) sh*t or get off the pot, so I registered for the exam in Sept.  There's no turning back now!  Guess that mean's I need to turn my studying up to high gear.

The second thing on my To Do list (and much more exciting than studying) is dining room chairs!  The room is painted, so I guess it's time to finally do something with the 6 chairs hanging out in my basement awaiting refinishing.  I just got some of this stuff that's meant glue and swell the wood, generally tightening up all the joints.

I've never tried it before, but Handy Dad recommended a similar product (which I couldn't find anywhere).  We'll see how it goes, since all 6 chairs are in need of TLC.  Chair repair is another new frontier for me, so naturally I'll let you know how it works out (or doesn't work out).

Once refinished and upholstered in the same colors and fabrics, this collection of chairs is going to be AMAZING in the dining room, don't you think?

Trim by Numbers

A year and a half living in this house, I'm finally starting to feel 'settled in.'  I guess all it took was addressing the dining room- why didn't I do it sooner?? Warning- this is going to be a long one.  Lots of steps.

Before I get to the "HOW," lets take a look again at the results

Ok, so how did someone with zero moulding/trim experience add detail to my dining room that looks like it's been there 100 years?

Well, the first step was paint.  I measured down from the ceiling, then used a laser level to connect the dots.  Since the trim was going over the line, I didn't have to be precise.

I ordered actual picture rail online from here since the local big box stores don't carry such specialized trim.

When it comes to cutting the trim, this guy certainly helped.  Meet my new adjustable miter saw.  45 degrees? no prob!  60 degrees? piece of cake!  70? no sweat.  Ok, so it couldn't really do anything in between increments of 5, but that's where caulk and wood filler come in.

The room has some wonky corners, so it was like putting a puzzle together.

So why not treat it as a puzzle?  I picked a starting point and numbered the wall where each piece of trim needed to be.

As I cut each piece, I numbered it accordingly to avoid the inevitable confusion later.

Even with all my planning, I still managed to forget to cut one piece and had to go back and cut it once all the rest were painted and installed.  That's how it goes.

I primed and painted the pieces before installing.  That way I would only have to do touch-ups once all the trim was up.

I'm just noticing now that I think I got a little overeager.  I did get pictures of the rest of the process, but they're so rushed!  Sorry!  I got a little too excited about the end result.

But how can you not be excited when a corner like this

ends up like this

I swear that's the same corner!

I borrowed Handy Dad's nail gun and attached the trim to the wall at the studs with finish nails.  I neglected to get pictures before I started with the fillers, though.  Wood filler covered the nail holes and caulk filled the gaps at edges, corners, and the bottom edge of the trim (since my walls were shockingly not totally straight).  The caulk/lack of gaps is really what makes the trim look like it's always been there.

After sanding the wood filler and touching up lots of paint, I got to do my happy dance.  Although my happy dance looked deceptively like melting into the couch exhausted.  In my head I was doing cartwheels, though, I assure you.

Without any heavy construction, somehow the room feels 2 times the size.  Mission accomplished!

Dining Done

Ok, I get it.  You guys like seeing projects get done, not hearing me talk about them progressing and simply showing you pretty pictures from the internet.  Message received loud and clear.  Results get more views.  Views are like crack to a blogger.  We just want more!  So I need to start delivering.  But, I digress. Dining room accomplished!! How's that for results?

Or at least the walls and trim are.  (apologies for the night photos- I was touching up paint until after dinner)

Remember what the dining room looked like about 2 weeks ago?  Nothing offensive, but kind of dreary.

Even the plastic faux wood doorbell cover got a makeover

There were some crazy angles that I had to try and get trim to fit.  The one below is a nice and easy 126 degrees.  Even my new adjustable miter saw balked at it.  With some paintable caulk and white wood-filler, though, I was able to conquer the corners!

The trim fits in with the character of the house.  It looks like it could have been there since the house was built 112 years ago, and naturally, that makes me happy.  so does purple.

Now I can't wait to raise the rest of the room up to the level of the walls.

Still left to do:

• Replace chandelier
• Swag chandelier over table
• Paint antique 'liquor cabinet'
• Refinish collected chairs
• Paint piano
• Create built-in 'china' cabinet (eventually)

Phew!