Dining Room Progress: Completed Dining Table, Picture Frame Wainscoting and Paint

Whew! We have been super busy getting our dining room into a usable state for Christmas. It has been two weeks since my last update, but we're nearly there!

I got all of the dark wood trim painted with the usual four coats to cover the wood, and at the same time I also painted below the existing chair rail in semi gloss white.

And this weekend my husband gave me my Christmas present: picture frame wainscoting! Originally I just wanted us to build our own (Centsational Girl has a great tutorial), which made my husband a whole lot more reluctant for something he didn't really feel would add that much to the room. So when we saw that it would only be about $60 more to buy the pre-made frames, saving us about a day and a half of time, he was happy to splurge on them (and get out of getting me a gift for Christmas too!).

Installing the frames, while I worked on cutting in for the wall paint above the chair rail.

Once the frames were installed, he caulked around all of the sides, and spackled the nail holes. I still need to go back and apply two coats of the semi gloss paint to them, which I plan to do this week.

And we also now have wall paint, which as usual, completely changed the whole room. In my last post I was trying to decide between two color options, Vermont Slate and In The Midnight Hour, and was going to make my husband decide. But as it turned out, he had the same feeling as I did, and liked them both. The tie breaker came when we decided to hold up the grey dining room chairs to the paint samples. Since grey will be one of the main accent colors, we decided on In The Midnight Hour, since we liked how it contrasted with the grey chair, rather than the more grey Vermont Slate.

I think we made the right decision, because we love it!

And you can see the slight textured look that the light fixture projects on the walls in this photo. Our walls are actually pretty smooth, but I love that with the flip of a switch they become so much more interesting--it almost looks like wallpaper at some angles.

Once the majority of the painting was done, we could finally bring in the Ana White table that I spent most of November building, and screwed the top and base together in place.

Friends, I am so, so proud of this table! 

This table is pretty far up on my list of most satisfying projects, actually. Something about building it all by myself, with no help at all (other than to lift it) was so, so rewarding!

A pretty big improvement over how blah and beige this room used to look, I'd say!

And now I can't wait to start accessorizing the room for Christmas. We don't have a buffet or sideboard table yet, but I'm thinking I'll at least maybe hang a mirror on the longest wall, and maybe make a Christmas wreath for the other long wall, just so it isn't so bare in there for Christmas dinner. I do have a bunch of table decor plans in mind already too.

Also on the to do list is hanging curtains (although I haven't decided on them yet, and might end up borrowing the plain white curtains from my office). And of course, we will be replacing all of the light switches, plugs and plates. I just couldn't bring myself to put back up the monstrosities that were in the room originally!

This room still has quite a ways to go, but I'm happy with the progress we've made so far. And I can't wait to eat Christmas dinner at our new table!

Have you been working on any projects around the house to get things ready for Christmas?