Thursday, March 12, 2015

Dining Room Metamorphosis

When we bought the house one half of one wall in the dining room was wallpaper. 
The rest of the room was white. It was so wrong!
Painting the remaining walls Park Bench Green by Sherwin Williams fixed the problem. 
We lived with that for a few years.


Eventually, I grew tired of that.
We took down the wallpaper, textured the wall and painted Rouge Red also by Sherwin Williams.
Didn't everyone have a red dining room for a while?

There I am before the appetizer portion of a progressive dinner party.
 Just a note in case you are planning on hosting one of these. Choose the dinner or dessert portion of the evening because this was a lot of work and our friends were only at our house about 20 minutes. 

Pretty soon after this get together, I repainted the room olive. It was a custom mix to match the pillows of our sofa. 
I loved the color.


We enjoyed it for 12 years. 
One of the first room makeovers my blog and our new empty nest was this room. 
I wanted gray. 
Gray can read green, lavender or blue. This house wants to read everything a little green and that is exactly what happened to Driftwood Gray by Martha Stewart. 
It was okay but not exactly the look I was going for. 
It kept to the dark toned tradition of this room in our home. 


This room has been dark and moody for 21 years.
In my quest to lighten and brighten this house, I was ready to give gray one more try. 
I chose Pebble by Glidden. My favorite brand of paint is Sherwin Williams but I'd given up on a paint color in that brand with no undertones. 
It took one afternoon to paint and put the room back 
together. 



I quickly realized that the "gothic" tone of the room was not going to work with the lighter color.
The corbels are gone.
The sconce is gone.
The chandelier needed a makeover.



The chandelier got quick hits of white spray paint in a tent created for this purpose.
There was no overspray.
It looked a little too stark so I dabbed and dry brushed gray, metallic silver and CeCe Caldwell Chalk Paint in Simply White.
Lightly sanding the edges after it was dry revealed some of the oil rubbed bronze and the original brass underneath. 
I was happy about that.
My hip hurt from two days on the ladder and the room still wasn't working. 
Could this room shed it's dark tones and become new, light and bright?



I hobbled my tired hip up to bed to sleep on it. 
Even though I have always been wild about the mirror reflecting the chandelier, I decided to flip the dish dresser and the buffet. 
The right side of the room was too dark and heavy with the wall color. 



Much better. 
I'm still not completely in love with the chandelier but a search of every lighting store on this side of town yielded nothing new or vintage. 
I'll have more of a reveal in another post.

I want to thank those of you that continue to visit. 
You might remember I was struggling with blogging a few months ago. I was afraid of burn out and wondered why I was still here. New ideas were just not coming to me and I felt I was forcing it. There didn't seem to be anything new to write about. Your sweet words kept me going and the natural force of chronically and compulsively re-doing my house once again kicked in. Regaining my strength and energy after being sick for three weeks in February has helped. 
I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that Let's Add Sprinkles would hit half a million page views.  
I'm so thankful for those of you that continue to visit. 
I didn't get to visit many of you when I was sick and it is wonderful to be back visiting and chatting with each of you. 
I never knew that blogging friendships could be so wonderful! 
You all have blessed my life and given me spiritual insight with your blogs and your words. 
I hope you are having a blessed day.
Katie   
Linking with 
From My Front Porch to Yours  
Common Ground for Share Your Style  
Funky Junk Interiors   
Ms. Toody Goo Shoes

11 comments :

  1. I just read your post then went to Joss and Main and they have a light event and I like this one https://www.jossandmain.com/Leading-Lights-Clara-Chandelier~GNL3210~E18000.html .

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  2. I enjoy reading your posts. Thank you!

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  3. Wow! Your furniture switcheroo sure made the difference, I think. The current color is very pretty!

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  4. Katie,
    Wow loved seeing all the changes. I love your current color. Very pretty. I think we all get that same feeling in blogland! I been there myself and if you take a step back sometimes or a little break it helps. I enjoy your posts so happy you are "blogging" on! Have a great rest of the week.
    Kris

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  5. Hi Katie, I couldn't agree with your more about friendships that are birthed from blogging. One month ago I went through major surgery, so wasn't able to visit everyone like I thought I would, but everyone still visited me and sent love & encouragement. So glad you are back and feeling better. Have a fantastic evening.
    Hugs, Noreen

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  6. I am so glad you hung in with blogging, Katie. I love your blog and have gotten to know and love you, too. I am glad you are better- we both really struggled with being sick this winter. I just got 2 more weeks on steroids- started at Thanksgiving and just now getting over it -so I know what you have been going through.

    I LOVE the way your dining room turned out. I think this is the best look yet...and I really like the chandelier now that you have painted it. It all looks GREAT! xo Diana

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  7. Looks fabulous Katie! Love how bright and airy it looks now. It always fun to look back thru the years at how our style changes. Thank you for joining THT!

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  8. I'm having a hard time leaving a comment, so forgive me if there are 3! Your room looks so much brighter with the new lighter gray paint! I love your painted buffet and mirror. Would you ever consider painting your dish dresser white? The leaded glass doors would really pop against white paint! Just a thought. :o)

    I'm glad you got your blogging mojo back. I think we all go through ups and downs and wonder why we're here.

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  9. So much brighter and lighter now-great job!

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  10. I love the new brightened-up look! The chandelier looks FANTASTIC in it's new white paint. I had to laugh, because although I never had a red dining room, I really, really wanted one! Thanks for linking this up with Best of the Weekend, Katie!

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    1. OMG, I forgot the most important parts! First, sorry to hear you were sick for three weeks, and glad you are better. Also VERY GLAD you got your blogging mojo back - you know I am a fan :)

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