Worth the pain!

As I mentioned in this post, I decided in all my wisdom to make like the Abbey and install some (faux) wainscoting in our dining room. Why is it faux you ask? Real wainscoting, as invented by now dead people long, long ago, was meant to insulate the room from cold and dampness. It would consist of full wood panels, completely covering the existing wall surface. This is when walls used to be stone. Modern walls have insulation, and so there's no good reason to completely cover your walls in actual wood panelling anymore. So to fake it, we just installed a chair rail (also known as dado rail?? Who knew.), as well as decorative moulding to form the boxes.

Super awesome parents and dutiful husband

craptacular iphone picture

Might sound hard - but that was the easy part!

Since this was "my project", once the mouldings were up, it was my job to caulk and paint. And caulk I did! (That's what she said!). To make everything appear smooth and finished, I caulked all the nail holes, all along the edges of the trim, and the corners where the chair rail pieces meet. I would say I probably spent 5 or 6 hours doing this, over the span of a week.

And then the painting. I primed, twice. Then, I painted everything white. This is where things got stupid. Since we didn't paint the baseboards and door trim (and it was done only 5 years ago and I didn't feel it needed to be done again), it was my best guess as to which of the ELEVENTY BILLION different whites was already on there. Turns out it was Benjamin Moore Cloud White. But I didn't know this at the time.

The people's trim colour of choice, BM CC-40

(I'll just say this: OF COURSE IT WAS. If you are touching up your baseboards and you don't know what colour of white they are, I will save you the hassle and tell you that they are probably Cloud White. People love them some Cloud White. See discussions on this here, and here, if you're interested.)

But first I tried SW Westhighland White. (I like Sherwin William's more, because their store is closer)

It was so bright white next to the baseboards it made them look filthy. Fail. Then I tried SW Roman Column (on the chip it looked positively yellow next to Westhighland White). 

Still, it was shockingly white next to the (unbeknownst to me) cloud white baseboards. So, after priming, and then painting - twice - I was at a crossroads. We figured out it was cloud white when my husband went digging in the basement and found an old paint can from previous owners labelled the ubiquitous CC-40.

Why yes, I am an idiot for not looking first, thank you.

I had two choices, I could head over to Ben Moore and pick up some of their famous trim colour and paint a third time, or just slather my Roman Column all over the baseboards and pretend like none of this ever happened. I went with option two, because I am very, very lazy. But I'm glad I did. The trim around the doors is still Cloud White, as is the trim in the adjacent living room, but I don't feel like you can really notice. Besides, Cloud White is VERY creamy. It goes really well with the colour that's on the walls now, but I'm going to change that soon, and since I'm more a fan of gray based, cooler colours, I think the Roman Column will complement it much better.

In any case, it's done now. I love it, and I have extra satisfaction from the fact that it was all my idea and (mostly) my sweat and tears. I high five myself every time I walk past the dining room.

Before:

And after:

Yuh-huh, the mirror is crooked.

Close-up:

Next up for the dining room - painting OR wallpapering (!!!) above the trim.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Just like the Abbey

I'm obsessed with Downton Abbey! I wish I lived there. Have you noticed every room at Downton Abbey has some kind of wall panelling? Chair rail, wood panelling, wainscoting etc... Obviously I need to make my house look more like Downton Abbey so I can wander around pretending I'm Mary Crawley and ordering people to pour my tea while staring at myself in the mirror.

 Sigh. I really should have been born the daughter of an Earl sometime in the early 20th century England. I would have been SOO good at it.

So, with the help of my awesome dad (the Earl of Grantham), we're installing wainscoting in our dining room. It will probably look like look nothing like this when we're done:

The dining room at Downton Abbey

I started by taking all the measurements of the room:

We needed 363" or 30.25' of chair rail (we added up all the wall lengths to determine this). And then to create the boxes within the chair rail space, we doubled that, and then figured each box would be 22' high, and then figured out how many boxes we would do AND OH MY GOD THIS IS SO BORING WHO CARES.

Anyways. We went to home depot and bought chair rail and decorative moulding. The Earl told me how much to buy and so that is how much I bought. Let's not turn this into a math lesson ok?

Then we drew guidelines for the chair rail and the boxes on the wall. It looks like some kind of ghetto Trompe-l'œil.

 
I can't wait until this is done. The dining room is currently so boring and beige. I've got some wallpaper samples on the way to check out for above the chair rail.

See the candidates on my pinterest board. And stay tuned for more pictures of the progress!