Dining Room Progress

I've been making a bit more progress in our dining room. I painted white below the chair rail this weekend. It looks much better, I'm glad to get rid of the previous greenish color.

I've been debating over what to do for wainscoting and as of now I've decided that I'll make the picture frame wall panels myself. I found some moulding that I like at the Home Depot and found out that it will actually be much cheaper for me to cut and piece it together than buying the pre-made panels. I would have (/was planning to have, lol) bought the pre-made panels just because they are so easy, but I literally couldn't find them anywhere... they're sold out completely at Lowes.

I used newspaper to first visualize the number of panels that I'll probably need. Then, I also made two practice panels to see how they look.  It's actually really, really easy to make these panels and you don't need a fancy saw, a regular handheld saw and a miter box will do.  So, with the two panels temporarily taped on the wall, I took some pictures.

I haven't decided what to do about the chair rail moulding yet... keep or replace? I'm not too fond of the moulding that the last owners chose, but I think I can live with it for a while. Taking down that moulding and putting up new chair rail is a little more involved of a project. I really don't want to accidentally damage the wall right before the holidays.

Also, I haven't decided if I'm going to keep wall painted white below the chair rail for the look of wainscoting or paint the wall gray. Here's what I mean:

  

vs. 

  

More on that later.

I've also decided that I will probably try to make the curtains for this room on my own. I've been reading a lot of sewing and DIY blogs and instructions to make them and I think I can do it.  More on these later too, although I have decided that I will use this gray and white Duralee loop fabric: