dining room: the progression

this weekend, we finally and somewhat officially, reclaimed another room in our home - the dining room. for now, it will serve as our living room. but i wanted to remind you of the phases of this project.

these pictures are from the first day in our new house waaaaaaay back in october!

and then there was this part: the demolition back in november

 there was the demolished

the rebuild!

painting!

making it a home!!!

we still have to hang the trim, but for right now, that can wait!

the laundry is now the laundry room, and the den is the den. yay!

fireplace

new french doors

windows

building the wall

today we started building the wall between the bedroom and the living room!

nick framing up the hole

all this construction is occasionally traumatic for the dogs! separation anxiety is no fun, so zoey sleeps in the hall. this way she can watch nick work in one room and me work in the other (sigh).

zoey, the queen of the ranch

 making progress! one more board to go!

view of the wall from the front door

looking from the living room into the new bedroom

up next! leveling the floor!

nick's handy new tool (on clearance at lowes) helps with this project!

paint

we decided to paint the dining room a lovely shade of venetian gold from the locally owned benjamin moore store around the corner. 

venetian gold is the one on the left

first we had to buy a tinted primer. bummer, we just primed it in good old fashioned white no voc KILZ. ugh!!!  hint: those little triangles on the paint sample indicate this.
(duh. i mean who wouldn't know that little triangle = tinted primer required?)

primer

here is the primer! huh? that's going to make it easier to paint? i don't understand. 

but whatever. they are the experts! time for the first coat!

because silly me had to have the treehugger paint, this is how it looked at first.

first coat?!?!

we bought thebenjamin moore no voc natura water based paint. it went on like tempura paint. maybe there is a trick out there to this stuff, that i don't know about. i learned that it has to go on thick, but at $50 bucks a gallon, who wants to slather on that paint. you want to make it go as far as possible!

 but after two coats and then letting it dry overnight, this is how it looked this morning.

i am pleased. no, not just please - i think its bea-u-ti-ful!

 but i am not sure if the next rooms will have the natura paint...

it is very exciting that finally, we might actually have one almost completed room!

which color? holy cow?

we are about to paint the dining room. which color???

HOLY COW!!!!

ps all three pictures are show the same paint sample at different times of day

all of these paints came from the paint store down the street. locally owned and operated the benjamin moore paint store, mountain paint and decorating. i asked the fine gentleman behind the counter

 "and you can make this all treehugger-y and earth friendly?"

his response "we can do anything you want"

well alright then, NOW we're talking!!!

re/staining the floor

DO OVER!!!!

so we decided to re sand the floors.

this looks much better!

loving it!

i like this picture because this is how far i got before i ran out of stain.
7:30 pm trips to lowes ROCK! NOT!

all done!

the final product

love it!!!

the library/dining room

the room once known as the library will become the dining room.

but, until we get the house more situated, the "dining room" is going to become our den. last week i primed our new drywall. now we are ready to paint! 

as you know, the pine floors (mostly heart pine!) in the house need to be redone. we decided to go ahead and redo the floors in the future dining room:

dining room: we rented a sander from lowes

this lowes sander is a pain in the rear end. the sandpaper only lasts like 5 seconds. 

ugh, the price we pay for gorgeous floors!

sanding the floor

now that the floor is all sanded, its time to stain. 

we chose rustoleum kona.

(yo dude. don't judge me on my method!)

first coat

hmmmm....looks a little funky! but i keep going anyway. 

(will this be a problem later? you betcha!)

next picture is so you can see the progression:

before sanding right half of picture
after sanding bottom left
first "attempt" at staining left middle

it is a little uneven

but not too bad right?

uh, yeah....we're going to have to redo that. apparently we didn't take off all of the previous polyurethane. hehe. OOPS!

changing it up a little!

catching up: january 16th ish

so here we are, faced with a new dilemma. we have torn down the walls to the studs. we are getting ready to get ourselves a new washer and possibly a new dryer too! and we start to think....

"where will we put the fridge?" 

"HMM....i ve got an idea!"

"ok, lets here it"

"lets put the washer and dryer in this here guest bedroom!"

"brilliant! and then we could put the master bedroom in the room we were going to make the dining room!"

"yes, and our existing bedroom could become the guest bedroom"

"and then when the dining room becomes our bedroom we get that nice fireplace in our bedroom with an attached bathroom and a walk in closet!"

"we could easily fix that new hole in the wall and close it off  the den!"

"and since we have this awesome new den, we could turn the library into the dining room!"

"and then we could turn the former guest bedroom into a laundry room/office/storage space/craft room!!!!"

"absolutely! and then close off the existing back door and put a french door going straight out the back of the kitchen into the backyard" (instead of into the driveway)

"and then someday we can build a small deck to help make use of a tiny back yard!"

"wow. great ideas. lets do it!"

"sweet!"

dining room will now be the master

another angle

current den, was eventually going to become guest room
will now become laundry/office/storage/craft space