Dining Room Update: Painted Walls + Trim

Jeez louise!  Having a day job really gets in the way of completing a project in a reasonable amount of time!  Over the past week, I've stolen a few hours every evening to get the walls and trim in our dining room painted.

Before: Gold Walls!

We decided to paint the dining room Kestrel White - a warm neutral that the designers would probably call "greige".

I spent one whole evening just doing prep!  Wash the walls, spackle, sand, more spackle, more sanding, more cleaning!  Then the same thing with the trim, but add taping off the floor to the list.  I swear the prep work took longer than the painting.

However, I did finally prove to myself that taping off works a heck of a lot better if you remove the tape while the final coat is still wet.  It didn't mess up my paint job one bit!  In the past, I've experienced peeling at the edges which was completely exasperating.

So after all that prep, I did two coats of paint on the walls.  One coat probably would have been fine, but because the paint changed color so drastically between being wet and dry, I couldn't tell if I had the desired coverage or not.  Even with two coats, I only used half a gallon of paint.

I did three coats on the trim - the third mostly for good luck, as it probably wasn't necessary.  I think there's less than 20 feet of trim in the dining room, so that third coat really only took about ten minutes.

Changing the trim to white really makes the new color pop

When it first went up, I really wasn't too sure about the color.  I think it was such a change from the gold that it seemed super bland.  But after living with it for several days, we're loving it.  It is really bland, but I think that's a good thing in a space that opens into so many other rooms.  There's a lot of visual stuff going on just outside this room, so allowing the walls to kind of disappear is nice.  It's a warmer color than the Rainwashed or March Wind in the living room and kitchen, but it brings them together nicely.

After: Brighter and Less Bold

Much better than before!

As is typical around here, one upgrade makes other things ugly by comparison, and the built-in cabinets are no exception.  With the gold gone and the trim changed to white, this thing has become quite the eyesore.  The wood doesn't match the floor, and the cream trim looks dirty with all that fresh white nearby.  Next on my list is getting this beast painted!

You might also be interested in these posts:
Choosing Dining Room Paint
Dining Room Mood Board
Choosing Paint Colors

Bonnie Projects