The Blind Thistle

We all gotta eat, so we may as well eat in a spot that we enjoy, am I right?

Our second make-over to our new (builder grade) home was the Dining room. We have an open concept kitchen/dining room and the dining area is seen from almost every angle of the house! It’s the first thing you see when you come through the front door. When we exit the mudroom, boom, it’s the first thing you see. When we are sitting outside on the patio…yep, there it is. The dining room is used as passage to get to the library, the bathroom and the Great room. It also makes a great escape route when trying to avoid answering the front door, or is that just me? I really hate answering the door. Mostly because I’m almost always in my pj’s but that’s enough about that.

So it it any wonder I felt this room needed to stand out while at the same time be inviting? I mean we are looking at it allllll the time.

Now I’ve always drooled over those stunning old Victorian homes with all their millwork and panelling details. Those homes have so much character *swoon*. So I decided that we would try and capture some of that character and add wainscotting. Because our ceilings in the dining room slope up to 12 feet high and our walls are 10 feet high, adding wainscotting details would really fill up the vast space while drawing attention the rooms generous proportions.

I quickly drew up a set of elevations to determine the configuration of the “panels” and also to get an estimate of the quantity of trim we would need. Fun Fact: Have I ever mentioned that the man has absolutely no ability (zero, zip, nil) to visualize these kind of things? So my sketches plus numerous Pinterest images (thankfully I use Pinterest!) helped him out. Next up we purchased 380 linear feet of trim from a local trim shop where I argued with the guy about the merits of buying a backband vs. the “standard” trim. Well sir, no one has ever accused me of doing things the “standard” way.

Like with our Master Bath, we set up a little production line as we did with the Master Bath panels. It was monotonous and we (ok, ok it was me) often made mistakes in how many pieces of a certain size panel we needed. By the end of the process our (my) brains were addled. The actual installation was tedious as well but at least the man let me use the Nail gun! Whoot! That’s a big deal because he tends to hog all the power tools to himself (with good reason, but don’t tell him I said that) I am happy to report no one was hurt in the making of this project!

After the installation a light sanding was done, then all the fill gaps were filled and finally the panels were painted. The whole process took about two weekends to complete. AND the whole thing cost less than $500. NO- actually it was less than $500 because we also used the same trim in our Master Bath makeover. So thankful that the man and I are handy (not to mention cheap) and willing to put in the work ourselves.

Here are the finished results.

The dining room looks so much bigger now and is filled with character.

What do you think?

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to read this blog post. Until next time!