Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Coffee and Cream Dining Room


I'd like to introduce you to the new and improved dining room, in coffee and cream.


We'd started this quite a long time ago, and worked at it in and around the rest of our schedule for months. You know how it goes.

We started like this in the New Year:


Then there was a ton of texturing, priming, and then some more priming:



Just to get from here: 


To here: 


The brown paint is Sherwin Williams Duration in Tiki Hut. It's a very true cocoa-like brown, without any reddish or grayish hues. It's paired with a color from Valspar called Cream Delight, but also done in the Sherwin Williams Duration label. 

Don't judge my floor housekeeping, but instead check the awesome trim, now completely done. The new boyfriend, Tom, is amazing at this: 


As usual every time I pick a bold color, I freaked completely out when the paint started going on the walls. 


(You can also see a bottle of beer and a bottle of wine in the background of this photo, which is how I coped.) 

The color went on quite a bit lighter than the paint swatch, looked like wet instant chocolate pudding (gross) and then took a couple of days (DAYS, I tell you) to cure into its final color. 


I like how the flat brown of the paint plays up the golden and reddish grains of the wood floor and furniture. I'm not a big fan of that buffet anymore (my tastes have changed dramatically), but at least it has a better looking place to reside. 



I did worry that this color would be too dark at night and during the summery months. But instead it feels cozy at night, and feels cool and calm in warmer seasons. Right now it looks a little stark because the walls are still bare and there are no window treatments, but that is the next step. 

In the meantime, I'm really digging the combination of of the greens of this vase and the brown walls. The wild ferns that won't stop growing near the air conditioner unit outside and the leaves of ditch daylilies that grow along the fencerow in the backyard look a lot classier this way. 


Right now we've moved on to one giant and unpleasant home improvement project, and a bunch of smaller and more gratifying ones. What are you doing around your place this summer? 

10 comments:

  1. I found your blog recently when I was researching Haas Cabinets. We recently purchased a 1966 brick ranch in Ann Arbor, MI and it has the original Haas Cabinetry. Anyway, I love the buffet!! Are you planning on refinishing it?

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    1. Probably the buffet will remain as is for quite some time. I never move very quickly on furniture decisions! Hope you're enjoy youring Haas cabinets; mine are still going strong!

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    2. We are enjoying our cabinets for now, especially the original and still bright copper hardware. I go back and forth on refacing them (not painting) at some point but for now they're remain as is. May I ask how your mother refinished yours? Did she actually sand them down and re-stain them? I ask because the previous owner had a wheel chair that scraped horizontal lines in some of the lower cabinet faces. Our upper cabinets are in fantastic shape. Do you or your mother have any ideas?

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    3. Mine were unbelievably dirty with layers of grease and food, so the first order of business was a thorough scrub. But after that, the only thing that was in bad shape was the finish. My mom sanded lightly to get that off, and then did a satin poly in several layers since kitchen cupboards get so much use. We didn't restain. I'm sorry but it's been long enough ago I don't remember the products we used.

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  2. I love that buffet, too. I think it's the perfect amount of antique in an otherwise updated room. Looks swank.

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    1. Thank you! I find as I get older my tastes get plainer and less fussy. I probably would not have picked this out now, but thanks for the reassurance that it still fits in this room!

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  3. It looks so, so nice. That color is perfect. And thank you for showing the shot with all the tape. It's so easy to look at "after" pics and think--Oh, I can do that! without knowing what "that" really entails. That was a crapton of tape to lay down.

    All that said, you are fueling my older home fantasies. Off to peruse real estate listings...

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    1. Peeling the tape off was almost worse than putting it down in the first place...because I had to cut edge with an exacto knife so the paint didn't peel up with the tape. I swore swears I didn't know I had in me. As much as I sometimes fantasize about new homes with nothing wrong with them (I know they don't exist either), I know I would never be comfortable in them. I seem to need homes with a story to tell. I just wish those stories didn't always involve trying my patience. :)

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  4. I think it looks better as is than it would with window treatments. What you have now really shows off the woodwork. Great room!

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  5. Love the cream on the built-ins. I see so many of those on HGTV in their original orange-y maple woodtones and think how colonial they look. Which reminds me of the house I grew up in---that "I enjoy reminiscing but don't really want it in my own house" kind of feeling comes over me. But the contrast is really sharp--and you can't beat having all that storage space!

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