Dining room progress and concept photos

This weekend, I slaved away at the dining and living room walls. I feel like I have a love/hate relationship with drywall mud, lol, because I love how the walls turn out when I'm finished but I *hate* the process of getting there! Putting on the mud, rolling it with a texture roller, smoothing them out a bit, waiting for them to dry, adding a smooth coat, sanding them, wiping them down...and then cleaning up all the sanding dust! So went my weekend. It was a dirty, dirty job, to say the least, but we now have nice dining and living room walls - a clean slate that only needs primer and paint:) I have photos of the mess but I'm going to wait and share those later because I don't even want to think about, lol. I'd rather think about what all this work is for- the end result that we'll someday enjoy.

So I've posted a few before, during and (future) after photos of our dining room. It's starting to take shape, though I must admit that it seems really bare now with those stark white walls. I *finally* settled on a paint color. I thought that I had chosen a shade of green called "Paris Green" but then I found a similar shade that I liked even better. It's called "Whispering Pine". It's a lighter, foggy green, if that makes any sense. The last photo below shows what we're going for in our dining room. I'll explain more down below. (click photos to enlarge)





On Saturday, I worked for about 9 hours straight on these dining room walls. I was so glad to be finished mudding! The table won't stay turned this way. The room is longer than it is wide and I think the table looks better turned longways. I'm just storing the white piece of furniture (in front of the window) in there for now. It's a future project, lol.



When we're all finished, this is what I want the dining room to look like (except for the ceilings - just pretend the photo shows white plank ceilings, lol!). The actual paint color I mentioned earlier is actually a smidgeon lighter than what is shown. I really like it! It's a nice soft peaceful green that looks great against the digitally added white window and door trim. The door you see there, that leads into the pantry/laundry area. We'll be replacing the bifold with a solid pine door painted "Russet" red, which is also going to be our kitchen cabinet color. Our dining/kitchen is just one big room, so I wanted to tie some of the colors together. I'm ashamed to say how long we've had this light fixture (still in the box!), lol, but it's just a very simple piece with linen shades. The dimensions in the photo below are askew - it's not *that* big, but about 25 inches across. The floors will be heart pine finished with tinted tung oil. My curtain fabric (that I've had forever) is a silk plaid taffeta- a sharp contrast to all the rustic, simple elements in the room. Though I'm not a taffeta kind of girl, I really fell in love with this fabric at first sight because the plaid element adds a colorful country touch that will tie all the colors in the house together. The curtain design will be simple - just long, straight drapes hung on an oil rubbed bronze rod. I'm still not sure if I want to go with a rod pocket design or just hang them with rings. I bought some white linen sheers that I may also use in here and they have a rod pocket, so if I use them, I guess the plaid curtains need to be the same.


So...I'm going for a really cozy and warm kitchen and dining room. Hopefully we'll be able to pull this off:)