Dining Room Transformation: From Disaster to Delight

It's hard to believe that it's been 4 months now since we started this project.  This room was so dark and heavy feeling.  I know that's in keeping with Victorian style, but it's not the type of feeling we are going for. As a quick reminder, here's what we started with:

Our first step was removing the spindles and carpet.  We also took out the old bookshelf that was hiding an original door frame.

Then, down came the wallpaper and fake crown moulding.

After much debate, we ended up drywalling the top half of the room (ok, my brother drywalled the top half of the room for us!)

And then we started painting...and painting...and painting some more.

Finally, the new crown moulding went up, the drapes were hung and furniture was moved back in. Today I spent some time recovering the dining room chairs.  We had purchased the fabric back in the fall, but were waiting until the room was done to actually recover them.  It felt great to finally get this task done!

We still have a few small bits left to do like hem the curtains, paint the doors and stain some patches in the floor, but those will all be rainy day projects.  For now, this room is ready to be lived in again, and we love it!