Tag: stencil

Painting the Dining Room

Marie Haigh1 Comment

I have always heard that if you paint your dining room walls red, then guests will want to eat more and talk more.

I am not painting our dining room walls red. My cooking can stand on its own legs now and our family does not need any encouragement to talk longer.

No, I am painting the walls orange!

Well, everything above the chair rail is going orange and everything below the chair rail is yellow with orange stenciling.

Every time I stencil I fall in love with the process all over again. This stencil is from an Etsy store called Royal Design Stencils.

Now Dan was a little surprised by my choice in color. He even tried talking me into only painting one wall orange, but I couldn’t keep such a bright, fun color to just one wall. He’s lucky I am keeping it to the dining room. I could have painted our bedroom orange.
Oh, now there is an idea!

Back to the dining room.

This is the never ending paint project. According to my old blog posts, I started painting the walls below the chair rail in May 2012. Hopefully, I will finish painting above the chair rail by May 2014. I think it would say something bad about my character if I let the project drag on longer than 2 years.

The Walls Hate Me

Marie Haigh2 Comments

I’ve written about the walls in my dining room a few times and my stripe design.

First, I sanded, primed and painted them.

Then, when sanding off the primer and paint didn’t work, I scraped all the prime and paint off.

Next, I painted with an oil-based primer and painted a top coat of latex paint in white. 

While measuring out my stripes, the paint peeled up in one spot.

It’s small, but I don’t dare put up painter’s tape since it will likely peel more paint off. And though I swore I would run to the hardware store and buy beadboard because hell was going to freeze over before I scraped the walls down again, I have yet to visit Loews.

After living with the dining room walls white below the chair rail for 3 weeks, I know now that I do not want them to remain white. I love color. I need color.

So, we are on to plan B which involves more paint. Surely, more paint will solve my problem.

I’m thinking a base coat of yellow and an allover stencil of orange on top. The stencil will look similar to the scrolls on the fabric I am using.

Or should I go with a base coat of orange with black scrolls on top? Since the kitchen is next to the dining room, maybe I should incorporate turquoise into the colors.

Yellow and turquoise?

Whatever colors chosen,  I’m going to have a colorful house by the time I’m done. Oh yeah!

Shooting for the Moon

Marie Haigh2 Comments

When I had first painted Elly’s room, I had only stenciled her growth chart up to 3 feet. I was so sure that it would be at least 3 years before I would have to extend it.

Elly isn’t even 2 yet and yesterday I had to pull out the stencils and paint.

Dan promised me that this would be the last time.