How to Make an Old Mirror New

So you probably guessed that this post refers to the magic of spray paint, and although this is not a new idea, the outcome is still pretty great.

We were given an old mirror from my hubby's nana which used to hang over the fireplace in her old house.  This mirror is solid wood and HEAVY.  It was also painted with a gold finish.  Not really our style, but the mirror has an interesting shape and some beautiful detail.

I painted it using Gloss Dark Espresso which gave it a beautiful dark gloss finish and definitely made it look more modern.

I think every time I spray paint something I have a "wow moment" where I can't believe that it worked again.  Spray paint is magical and if you haven't tried it yet, you must.

Now I just have to convince hubby to help me hang it.  The thing weighs a ton! I think I'm going to get to use the stud finder.  I love that thing.  I have a weird thing for tools.  Maybe I'll make some cookies... that ought to do the trick.

Its Curtains for the Dining Room

Don't worry, no one dies at the end of this movie, just beautiful curtains are hung (pun intended).

You may have noticed in the last post that we trimmed the window to match the door frames with wood trim.  This was a free project since we took the baseboards (yes, they used the same trim for baseboards and door trim!) that we ripped out of the hallway and cut them to fit around the window.  I also stained the wood around the window to match the trim, you can see in the picture below that its a bit orangey.

And now, a perfect match.

The curtains are up and they look great.  It's really starting to come together now.

Just a few more finishing touches and we'll be ready for the big reveal (although the above picture gives more than a hint at what it will look like).  Of course Teddy is front and center, he loves to be featured on here.

Dining Room Molding version 2.0

More molding is up!  It's time to show it off.

The room looks much more complete now and we are super happy with how it all turned out.  I have to take a minute to highlight hubby's pride and joy. 

This was his idea to wrap the box around the bump-out and it looks fab.  Great job honey!  Oh and I should mention that he also mitred EVERY corner of every piece of molding in the room.  Amazing.  I was planning to help, but I am not trusted to use the saw yet.  I did however get to use the nail gun.  I was pro.  I'll do a how-to on that soon.  For now, I'm just enjoying the view.

Dining Room Molding

We planned the molding carefully.  Usually we discuss and try out a few patterns with painter's tape like this.

And then stand back and see if we like it...

But this time something went wrong with the planning...

Someone (me) miscalculated the amount of molding that we needed by about half.  This of course mean that I also miscalculated the budget for this room by about half.  Don't you hate it when that happens?  Did I mention that I majored in Math?  How embarassing!

So since there's almost nothing I hate more than being over budget except rude people and Stephen Harper's hair (Canadian humour), we're taking a short break from the molding to regroup and save up for the bug finish.

Source

The room looks great, and we thought about just doing the two walls with molding since the other two will be covered partially with furniture, but I think it looks unfinished.  We're not planning to put any molding on either side of the window since that part of the wall will be entirely covered by the curtain panels.

Still in progress, but coming along nicely.  What do you think?

Beautiful Window Glass Makeover on a Budget

So I was at HD shopping for wooden blinds and I was like "They cost HOW MUCH?!".  Man, that is not happening ($400-$800 in case you were wondering).  I'm not putting ugly aluminum blinds in my pretty dining room, which is about all I can afford ($200).  I also like the bamboo shades, which are pretty affordable, but not formal enough for the look I want.

Then I saw it.  It was like some enchanted evening and I spotted it across the crowded room (name that movie/play).  It was perfect!  A beautiful glass pained window.  Are you ready?

Amazing!  I know, the perfect amount of elegance, privacy and very clean and crisp.  How did I afford to change out the glass of the windows when I couldn't afford blinds?  Its not new glass!  It is a film that is applied to the windows.

Here's the low down.  For $60 ($30 for each 2'x3' film) I transformed the window with just water and about 5 minutes of my time.

Sorry I don't have an pictures of the process, honestly, it took like 5 minutes or less and was SUPER easy.  It comes with really good instructions.
Here's the low down on how you do it:
First you remove the film from the package and trim to fit your window, you can cut it easily with regular scissors or a utility knife (I used scissors).
Next you spray the window with water (hint: I found that the more water the better because then I could slide it around to get it perfectly into place).
Then you take the backing off the film and position it on the window.
Using the squeegee (fun word!) that is included with the film you smooth it out and remove any bubbles (you may want a towel here to absorb the water that will squish out, I just squished it all out and then wiped it up afterwards).
Voila!  Brand new window, easy as pie.

The best part is that the film is removeable.  If you put it on crooked (which may or may not have happened on my first attempt) you can simply remove the film and try again, or slide it into the right position if you've put enough water underneath it.  This of course means that you can remove the film at any time and reuse it somewhere else.  It's not sticky like a sticker, just clingy like plastic wrap, except plastic wrap hates me and always sticks to everything, and the window film is awesome and made my day.

It looks so real that you can't even tell until you actually touch the window.  We've already fooled a bunch of people into thinking that it is real leaded glass.  Amazing!

If you decide to check it out for yourself the brand I used is called "Light Effects" and the pattern is called "Vienna".  They have lots of options including some funky coloured stained glass ones for if you wanted even more privacy or to conceal an ugly exterior view, like if your window looked out into an alley or a brick wall. 

Window before beautification

And now

Dining Room Painting

Progress has been made!  It looks soooo good.  We've been painting machines, which is nothing new since we've already survived a painting marathon.  However, I think hubby has banned me from using two paint colours in anymore rooms.  It takes twice as long to paint it since you can only do one colour at a time.  We'll see.  For now I am celebrating that I can finally put away the paint cans (at least until I have to touch up all the molding... boo).

Anywhoo... Check it out, I can't wait to see it all come together.  What do you think so far?

Before

After

Dining Room - The Plan Part 2

Since I already showed you my curtains and the rug for this room, I'm guessing you have a pretty good idea where the colour direction is going.  Blue and brown and cream.  Very neutral compared to the front hall, but I'm hoping also very sophisticated.

The molding that we've planned for the dining room walls is also a lot more complex than the front hall molding and will require a lot more math, a lot more cutting, a lot more nail-hole-filling and caulking (boo) and obviously a lot more time.  I'm going to use the caulking gun this time so watch out for my how-to on that, once I master it of course.

For the trim we're going to keep the wood for now, maybe forever.  We love the look of it and the glass doors are so beautiful... I can't bear to change them.  In the future if we open up the kitchen/dining rooms that may be a different story.

For the upper part of the wall we're going with Prelude a nice blue-gray from Behr.

For the lower part of the wall and the molding/baseboard we're going with Ocean Pearl (also Behr).

We still have some outstanding things to decide.  We need a privacy idea for the windows, I was hoping for something other than sheers since I want a cleaner look.  All the furniture is wood and pretty traditional so we'll have to find some ways to inject some more contemporary items.  I don't want it to come out looking "old-persony".  No offense intended to actual "old people".
We need to decide if we are keeping the light fixture.  I already bought a replacement, but I'm not sure... what do you think of the current one?

We need something for the wall opposite the "balcony" and I'm thinking a mirror, but maybe something that we diy.  It will need to be pretty wide and not very tall to fit nicely above the chair rail.

Whew!  So that's the plan for the dining room almost complete.  Time to quit yapping about it and get down to business.

Dining Room - The Plan Part 1

Since there are SO many elements in my dining room plan, I decided to divide and conquer here.  In this post I'm going to talk about the existing elements in the room and existing furniture, etc that we will be using.  In the next post we'll talk colours and go over some other exciting goodies.

The dining room looked like this when we bought the house (not our furniture, etc).

The plan is to remove the wallpaper and add molding to the walls (more on that later).  We're going to change the layout and move the buffet to the other side of the room, I think this will really improve the flow.  We have a buffet and china cabinet (wedding gifts) which will be going in here and we also have a hand-me-down table and 4 chairs that will be staying for now.  Here's a preview.  Can you see now why we needed new curtains?

The rug (pictured rolled up above) was a clearance purchase from Ikea and is one of my favourite items in the room and was the second inspiration item that I alluded to before.  It's got a kind of oriental style pattern and is lovely soft wool.  You can also see the inspiration curtains folded on the buffet (above).
I think its going to be beautiful!  What do you think?

Dining Room Inspiration

As always I like to start each room with an inspiration item.  For the dining room there were actually two, but it all started with the curtains, so I have to give them most of the credit.

Here's what I'm talking about...

Love the pattern, love the colours, love the sheen.  Can't wait for this room to be complete!  We've got boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes (you get the point) of china to unpack into this room.  All the box clutter is starting to drive me batty.  Well that and my to-do list which seems to grow exponentially daily.