The Dining Room Before and ALMOST After

I love my new-old home, it has SO much potential, but this dining room needs a lot of loving and I mean, LOTS!  I actually had no plans to do anything in here other than new curtains and paint the walls (for the time being) but then something lovely happened (wait for it).

Here's the dining room when I bought the house.
Yes, those are burlap curtains.

They were made really well but they had-to-go and in the spirit of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, I used them for drop cloths. (They were faded and stained and gross so don't going feeling all sad for them!)

So I painted.
Usually I get the color on the first try but nooooo.
This one turned out to be too baby blue
and not the cool, steely grey-blue I really wanted.

Lovely lighting always makes a room so purty!

And so this is part one of the lovely thing that happened
to me! I got these fantastic built-in cabinets
from a friend of mine for practically nothing!

I physically could not let them just sit there looking all sad and not installed. I couldn't do it, so I called my GTG (Go To Guy) and came up with a plan. I went back and forth a couple of times but using the built-ins as inspiration, I finally decided to wainscot the whole darn room.

We  My GTG added lauan to the walls.

And over the soffit that contained the AC ductwork.

And everyone who knows me, or reads this blog,
knows I am a more-is-more kind of gal therefore
a coffered ceiling too!

I'm going to channel my inner Oprah, "Dining room, you get a coffered ceiling! Living room, you get a coffered ceiling! Hallway, you get a coffered ceiling!" You get the idea.

Every single wall in the dining room was uneven and had measurements
all over the place. We decided the only way to have a bit
of uniformity was to have different size wainscot trim panels
but keep the distance from the corners/edges of the walls
the same. I think they turned out great.

A little Bondo, a freaking ton of caulk, and
it is starting to come together!

Every tricked out dining room needs a ceiling medallion.
It seriously is a must!
Google it.

Now, the question is . . .  who gets to paint this? Oh crap! That's me! I don't have a lot of money so I made the only decision I really could and that would be do as much as I can and hire the experts for all the rest. I see a lot of sanding, priming, and painting in my future! 

And remember this other lovely?
This was given, that's G.I.V.E.N. to me by
another friend! Don't I have the best friends?

Before I know it, I'll be eating meals in my dining room but that's for another post!

Kristin