Here is the before (and before any furniture moved in either):

Another before, with stuff this time:

So, here they are. The pictures of the dining room. This shows the largest wall we have that isn’t broken up by a window or an entrance to another room: Click HERE to see a swatch of the color.

Now, standing next to the bookshelf, with the kitchen to my left:

See all that empty space by the cat tree? I have no idea what we’ll do with it. From the other direction (kitchen now to the right of the bookshelf you see here).

That last picture makes it look a bit like the wall keeps going to the right, but it doesn’t – there’s another opening the same size as the one you see here, but it leads into the family room (no breakfast bar in the way though).

Other projects slated for this room.

• Recover all the chairs. I have fabric already that coordinates with the paint. The fabric on the barstools doesn’t go with the new paint color at all!
• Hang stuff on the few walls we have.
• Do something with the big open area that makes sense.
• Paint the kitchen something other than stark white. I don’t want a dark color for that room because it is in it’s own corner and the only windows to it are in the dining room.

I’m very very pleased with how this came out. It’s exactly the color I was going for. I’d say the color in the pictures is pretty accurate, with the exceptoin of the very bottom one, on the right it looks more pale orange than the clay-red it should be. The name of the color is Cajun Red, but really it should be clay-brick red. It adds warmth to the ceiling and coordinates with the wood instead of washing it out.

Oh yeah, and Jill says “Isn’t this supposed to be a knitting blog?”. We’ll get back to knitting soon. :)

So, I just knew you wanted in-progress pictures right??

Here ya go:

“No more yellow”!

Now don’t panic – This is NOT the final color. This is the primer. You can see the tape on the ceiling still. The husband says he kinda likes it like this. Yikes! I better get the real color on there fast. This was taken about 6:30 in the evening; the sun is still up.

I have a thought/plan for window coverings too for those funny shaped windows (should help when direct sunlight is coming in and we want to try to keep out the heat direct sun generates. Think roman shades with custom angled tops. The link is for a site that has great instructions on making roman shades yourself, and doing it correctly so that they go up/down with ease and look great too! I made two roman shades in our last house. One I brought with me (my son’s airplane quilt -can’t find the blog post right now, but I know it’s in the archives somewhere. Let me know if you find it, ‘k? Update: mom found it here ) The other I left there.

The only problem with the roman shade idea is that the top 6″ on the tallest side of each window will always be covered with a shade, and I’m not sure I want that. I’d love something that was able to dissappear completely when it was in the ‘up’ position. That might destroy the cool looking shape of that wall. We’ll see if I ever have energy to do anything about it.

This is a small area in the basement that doesn’t really have a door on it, but it has two smallish closets with lots of rough shelves in them, and it has doors leading out to a bathroom, the guest room, my daughter’s room, and the door leading IN to the area from the stairwell. Including the closets that 6 doors to put tape around.

I’m a firm believer in tape when painting because I don’t wanna slow down when I’m painting to cut in edges in that ever so careful way you see ‘professionals’ on TV do it. This room is destined to be demolished if and when we ever get our old house sold, and line up someone to come and do the work. So it’s silly that I painted it, but the walls hadn’t been painted in many many years, and it showed. Plus it could be a year or more before we get the money together to do the remodel. In the meantime, let’s paint!

Here’s a before (standing outside doors to guest room and daughter’s room):

Another before, looking the other direction:

I forgot to take a picture before putting the tape up, it’s covering a probably-needs-painting trim around floors and doorways, but no way am I painting trim down there.

And the after:

The difference is amazing. The color is my favorite, “Shadow Beige”, available at Home Depot. It warms it up just enough, and contrasts really well with the white trim and white ceiling. Having the walls look so clean is awesome too. It’s definately not my best paint job; there are still a few thin spots, and the ceiling to wall area is a little sloppy, but for what I wanted it to do – clean it up and make it look all fresh, was worth the $20 on the gallon of paint (of which I still have at least 1/3 to 1/2 of it left).

Now if I just have energy to do a primer coat in the dining room, plus the two full base coats.

Did you know that you can buy paint on sale Memorial day weekend? I didn’t know that, but now that I’ve got the painting bug, it’s a good thing. I wanted to decide on a color for the dining room. It’s been driving me nuts that it’s still bright yellow; so we put up some swatches:

From left to right:
Clary Sage
Cajun Red
Anjou Pear
Artichoke
Shadow Beige
more small bits of Cajun red

The Clary sage was too washed out, and very grey looking. The Cajun Red is awesome (this is what we picked). The Anjou Pear isn’t too bad, but it’s still a yellow. Artichoke looked good; but when we put it on a pillar in between windows (not shown) it was green on green outside. The Shadow Beige just looked washed out (it’s also on the pillar behind the first bit of Cajun Red). We tested the Cajun Red near the ceiling to make sure it contrasted enough and didn’t bring out too much orange in the ceiling. Winner!!!!

It will be darker in that room once it’s all painted red. There are alot of windows, and two skylights to help combat this. I might feel differently next winter when I feel like the sun is never coming out again; but this red is more “me” than any of the other colors; and I think that means alot.

Of course, if I ever have to paint OVER the red; I’ll be cursing myself for picking it in the first place :)

I have purchased a tinted primer (boooooooooooring grey) and two gallons of the chosen color, Cajun Red. Off to clean up, tape and start painting!

Oh, and if anyone wants a barely touched quart of any of the above colors to try in -their- house, just let me know. You’ll have to come pick it up though! :)

Having moved into a new house a few weeks ago; I have an irresistable urge to paint in some rooms.

The biggest urge comes from the dining room. It’s yellow. Sunshiney overly perky yellow. I have been looking at paint chips for a long time. In my last house I was able to do a really great accent color behind the cabinets, and the rest of the room was a neutral. This kitchen/dining room isn’t arranged quite so nicely.

The only colors that are striking me as correct are a sage green; a neutral (boring) or changing the yellow to something I can actually like. So I went to the paint store today and bought 1 gallon of neutral (for downstairs in the craft room that looks like it hasn’t been painted in about 8 years or more), and 2 quarts; 1 of “Anjou Pear” and 1 of “Wild Raisin”.

I immediately opened up the Anjou Pear, and whipped out a big swatch on the wall:

Colors are so-so accurate. New color on the left (next to the window), still wet, so it’s shinier than it should be, and old color on the right. You can definately see how the sunshiney yellow is really really yellow. In the evenings when it’s dimmer in that room; it’s not so bad. In the morning with the sun, the green in the yellow takes over and it’s overly bright. (Gee, it looks great when it’s dark!)

While I like sage green, I am thinking I want to avoid green, because of all the windows in the room; you’d end up with layers of green; not really what I want. Plus we have a green couch and chair in the room about 4 feet away, and I don’t want to have an ‘all green house’. The ceiling is a cedar ceiling, so it’s very dark on it’s own – a super dark color on the walls would probably swallow the whole room. I painted up a small swatch of the raisin (which will require about 3 coats to really cover well), and it is very very purple. I think that one won’t end up in the dining room; I might see if it’d look good in our master bedroom as an accent wall.

Other possibilities – going back to a green, and a medium sage green (not too dark, not too light); but I don’t think it’d look good in the actual kitchen. Or painting it all a neutral, my ever favorite Shadow Beige. I have enough for the downstairs room that I can do a sample in the dining room/kitchen to see how I like it.