Welcome Back!

Sweet baby Jesus, I didn't realize it's been since November that I've posted.  Don't think we've been spending all that time just laying around though.  No sir, not us.

So where did I leave off?  Did I even post about building the farmhouse table?  I don't think I did.  Click the link for Patrick's how-to tutorial on Instructables.com and go make yourself one!

So here's the table around Thanksgiving time when we finished it.

 

 

And here's another shot with the big cow.  Everybody seems to like the big cow.  In case you missed it, I posted a tutorial here on how I did it.

 

 

 

So that gets us up to Thanksgiving.  Between Turkey Day and Christmas, we didn't get much done.  Except shopping.  We always do all of our shopping starting on Black Friday.  It gets expensive, but I'd just rather not worry about it the other 11 months out of the year.

 

So we were trying to decide what to do with our long New Year's weekend and I was all, "Hey, let's finish remodeling the dining room finally."  So we did.

 

And here it is:

 

 

We used the same non-beaded beadboard we put on the chalkboard wall in the kitchen. 

 

HOLD UP!  I never even posted finished photos of said chalkboard wall.  Let's back it up a bit.

 

Before I disappeared for a few months, we left off with the chalkboard wall painted, but not conditioned.  Okay, so here's the chalkboard wall progress:

 

Patrick adding the non-beady beadboard

 

And here's a link to the wainscot we used from Home Depot.  I picked this over the traditional-looking beadboard because it doesn't have the center bead between the wider planky-looking parts.  Sorry that's a terrible explanation, but I like what I like and I know it when I see it.

 

Source

 

And here's a photo of it finished up with the chair rail and baseboard added.  This is pre-paint on the trim, and once we added 3 coats of paint, you totally can see any of the seams where the 3 pieces of beadboard meet.  (Can you find the 2 seams in the photo below?  I can!)

 

 

 

 

 

And months later, I still love that light fixture.  Such a good choice.

 

We did put a new outlet and plate cover on the wall - don't worry.  And we painted everything.

 

We've had fun doodling on the new wall.  Bob likes to admire our handiwork.

 

 

 

I even doodled our family.

 

 

 

And here's the whole wall, with the trim painted.

 

 

 

So anyway, we decided to work on the dining room over the New Year's weekend.

 

Downward dog

We used the same Martha Stewart Sharkey Grey paint from Home Depot for the walls and the same Behr Silky White for all the trim.  In the photo below, you can still see the original triple bead wood trim in the living room and the brass spotlight.  Don't worry, those are gone now.

 

 

And here's what it looks like after we added the furniture back in.

 

 

We built a side table to match the farmhouse table so we could get rid of the old desk we had in there.  Here's a link to the Instructable on how we did it.

 

We also built shelves and stained them to match so we could display my collection of antique ironstone I started over the summer.

 

Shelves with simple black arc brackets

 

 

But wait!  Wasn't the big cow on that wall?  Don't worry - it's been relocated.  More on that in the next post.

 

Farmhouse style console table

 

In case you're wondering, the big photo of the stone lion is one I took during a trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC a few years back.  The white blob in the bottom of the photo is Bob Barker's tail.

 

Tiny Greenhouse

The tiny greenhouse, the plants and plant pots are all from Ikea.

 

 

 

 

And I finally got around to hot gluing some picture hangers to Patrick's antlers, so those got hung in the big antique frames.  The bench that I bought for the kitchen remodel in the Jasper house now lives in the dining room.

 

I used Ook brand hangers since we have plaster walls, and these are the only thing I've found that don't make hanging things a complete nightmare.  These are basically just an angled tack on one end with a blunt nail-type part that sticks out so you can hang things on it on the other end.

 

 

 

 

Then I hot glued a sawtooth picture hanger across the back of the antlers on the flat side.

And now they hang out (up).

 

 

 

Whew!  I think that's it for today.  At least I'm caught up to the last week of January.

 

We did get to the living room over the last couple of weeks.  I'll post on that sometime soon.  Like, not 8 weeks from now.