Progress in the dining room has been slow. There were a lot of “behind the scenes” things that needed to happen before all the pretty. Unfortunately that takes time. As the progress began to reach a point where it was time to paint, I had a strong designer to go bold so I’m bringing color back in this space.

A couple weeks ago we worked together and put down the last of the hardwood flooring and then it was all about the drywall; spackling, sanding, respackeling, etc. It’s maybe the part of any reno project that we like the least. That dust gets EVERYWHERE.

On a whim, we decided to keep more of the brick exposed than originally planned. I love it, but with all the different textures going on, I’m having trouble deciding on other details. I had at one point asked B if we could do some kind of wooden design on the ceiling just to add interest. After toying with different patterns, I talked myself out of it because the brick has a natural pattern that will still be visible and with the wall of cabinets and all the textures, I was afraid it would look too crazy in there.
B and I later got the idea to add in some wooden beams just to bring in some more natural wood. That idea stuck and we are currently planning on adding in a few faux wooden beams to the ceiling.
At a different time I had toyed with the idea of doing wallpaper on the cabinet wall behind the open shelves to add a pop of color or fun pattern but again, I have talked myself out of it for fear of having too many things going on in the room.
When it came to paint, I have been all over the place. At first I wanted to do a dark color on the ceiling and white / almost white walls. Then I thought I wanted to do something super dark and moody on the walls and a white ceiling. B was 100% against a dark color so I struggled.
On a whim, I headed to the hardware store and gathered a bunch of paint swatches. I brought them home and laid them out on the floor along with the new pendant lights we’ll be putting over the table. That helped a lot and I was able to narrow down the color choices to just a few.
B said he was OK with any of them so when we went back to the hardware store to buy the paint, we decided to just “pick one” and let it be. I have to say that after all the trouble I / we had with deciding on a paint color, I am absolutely in love with the finished product.

There still is lots to do but our dining room is finally starting to take shape. Once the floors are finished, we’ll move our rug in and set up the table. Then I’ll decide on whether we will add in any other furniture or just keep it simple with the wall of built-ins on this wall.


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