Dining room / wood work

When we first bought our house, the dining room looked like this:

I spent the better part of New Years Eve taping the windows...

Yes, I did this New Years Eve, the pictures were taken the following morning, ok??

Then one more task to do before painting... the house originally had a door between dining room and kitchen - how depressing! So I removed that weird doorway piece that no longer served any purpose - because humans don't live like this anymore! (The last time I can remember seeing a door into a kitchen must have been the Cosby show!)

weird doorway piece

At first I thought I was crazy - why am I ripping stuff off the house? I asked John - should I use a crowbar for this? He laughed as I trudged upstairs to find one. Well, I am officially a complete dork because I had no idea a crowbar weighed about 75 lbs (or so it seemed). I didn't even attempt to carry it out of our tool room extra bedroom. But I managed to wedge in a scraper tool thingy and hammer away at the doorway until the wood piece broke free, nails and all attached.

Sorry no action shots!

Next I scraped away as much excess old paint as I could, patched it with plaster, and sanded down for a smooth finish.

before                         after removal                    after plaster

At this point the room was ready for painting. 

Yes, this is actually what I did New Years Eve!

New Years Day - I spent about 8 hours priming and painting...

...and painting

...and painting

By nighttime I was done. For the day. This was harder than it looks! The old wood keeps leaking through and staining the paint. Errrrrr. So I did one more quick coat the next day (At least each coat gets easier and quicker). 

In total this is 1 coat of Kilz primer and about 3 coats of semi-gloss Ben in Decorator's White. Yes, 3 coats. And to be completely honest, it could use another coat. I plan on going back to caulk some troublesome areas and throw another coat up at some point in the future. I'm going to do all the touch-ups downstairs at once to save my sanity.

But look how pretty! Compared to the before photos, the room is so much brighter and happier!

Watch out, dining room, the walls are next...