multi-hyphenated-me

Caution sign yellow-gold is out of my life FOR-EVER!

My dining room, an awesome oval room (OVAL! no corners), was painted bright caution sign yellow gold with white trim and sky blue accents.  In any other room I could have maybe probably handled the blaring brightness, but not in my dining room.  The prior owner had to paint the room something other than pale pink but why caution sign yellow-gold, I will never know as the color combination was so incredibly out of line with the rest of the colors chosen for the house.  This is the before paint, trim and accent color inside the cabinet, highlighted by the curtain and vase.

We bought the house with some rooms furnished.  The dining room was one of the furnished rooms.  In addition to the garish paint, our senses were overwhelmed with the rug and chair fabric.  You may love the combination, for me, it was painful sensory overload.

We have professional photographs from when our home was photographed for American Home in 1946.  This photo is the dining room then:

We based our paint selection off the tile, that a local quarry supplied in the 1940’s, similar to the original owners.  Instead of going with pink, we focused on the more salmon or coral color found in the tiles.  We also had to take into consideration the Brazilian rosewood that panels the walls in the foyer as it transitions into the dining room.

We used Valspar paints and chose Witches Brew, a red brown, for the trim because it blends well with the rosewood.  We chose Autumn Sunrise as the closest match to the darkest rust colored tile in the center tile above.  The curtains around our beautiful window pull it all together

My husband is a master painter.  I taped the whole room, he cut in the tricky parts, around the cabinet details, and we both rolled.

I am not a professional photographer so the photos do not do justice.  The brown paint draws out the dark flecks in the wood floors and the rose brings out the warm tones.  Our wine glasses will go in the cabinet on the left and our china will go in the cabinet on the right in another week, giving the cabinet paint more time to dry.  We decided against a rug for now.  We still have artwork to decide on and hang.  The seat cushions match well enough that I won’t consider changing them out for at least a year or more.  Project dining room is very close to completion and we will make our Thanksgiving deadline.

I love our new dining room.  I hope you do too.

In other news, our middle son told me this afternoon he wanted to start doing more stuff.  “Like what?”  I asked.  “Cooking, horseback riding and blacksmithing to start.” Really?  Blacksmithing?  Where does he come up with this stuff?  “Let’s start with cooking,” I suggested.  Tonight he made his first batch of chocolate marshmallow cookies from beginning to end.  I only helped put in and take out the pans from the oven on his direction.

Happiness.