Monday, August 29, 2011

So We Sailed On To The Sun...



The dining room has finally come together! Yes, it still needs a few tweaks, but for now it is done.  This project took much longer than expected.   It started in mid-April, only a few short days after we moved in.  Skip ahead to late-August and it is nearing completion.  See the progression of the project in photos and read all about it after the jump!






Here is the room we started with.  The second we stepped into the house we knew the wallpaper would be coming down.I wouldn't have started peeling the paper down so quickly if it wasn't already peeling on its own (or if I had known the project in store for me).  I've removed wallpaper before so I was pretty confident that this project would take a week or so.  I was an insider and I had all the right tricks up my sleeve; this would be a cinch.  Oh, was I wrong!  As expected, the plastic-y overlay came off really quickly and I got down to the paper backing within the first day.  After that, I ran into trouble.



Apparently, I was not the only one to notice the peeling parts.  It seems the previous owner tried to 'fix' this problem by super-gluing the edges of each sheet down.  Needless to say, I wasn't expecting super-glue.  The middle of the sheets came down with minimal effort, but oh, those edges; they wouldn't budge. 







We spent two months with a dining room that looked like something you might find in an old dilapidated house, not one someone was living and entertaining in.  Luckily, our friends didn't care that they were eating in a room with exposed, water-stained plaster walls and half-peeled wallpaper.

In late June Aaron's dad, Steve, came to town and helped me finish getting the last tiny scraps of wallpaper removed.  We had already tackled a fairly large outdoor project earlier in his stay here, but he wasn't finished helping out.  He sanded the walls down and helped me get the room painted!  He even caulked around the wainscoting and crown moulding!  The paint color was one we chose years ago and had painted our living room with in Oklahoma.

For those interested, the color is Behr's Sahara Shade. Aaron and I found a new light fixture and purchased a new and bigger table and that is how we got to where we are now.Future projects in the room include replacing the window with french doors, centering the light fixture over the table, and building end seats for the table.  But for now, it is done and we are both very happy with the results!