When we were house hunting, one of our "requirements" was a dining room. We wanted plenty of room so that we could offer our place to host a crowd. Our home has a dining room alright, but of course, it wasn't quite what we envisioned. This room has taken several months to "remodel," so I'm going to show you the project(s) in several posts.
But back to what wasn't working for us. First of all, the room was pretty dark. There was green wallpaper on all four walls and we pictured brighter-colored paint instead to open up the room. There was also a ceiling fan (that we decided to use in our bedroom -- click here to see that transformation!). I wanted a chandelier instead.
I know people like to decorate with mirrors (including me), but there was a huge, unframed mirror on the dining room wall that made it feel a little like a builder-grade bathroom to me, so that would have to go.
And finally, there were doors going from the dining room to the kitchen. Our goal is to brighten up and open up the house as much as possible, so these weren't staying.
See how the doors make the room seem closed-off?
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This was before our living room project -- remember that?
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So here's one last look at our dining room before we got to work. (I think those blinds were jumping off themselves! Those weren't staying either...)
The first thing we did was take down the mirror. It was really heavy, so while Alan unscrewed it from the wall, I held it to keep it from falling.
(But of course, I needed to get some pictures of him too, so we posed some just for you!)
The mirror came right off. I'm sad to say that we did break a corner in the process and had to clean up the glass, so we won't be reusing that for anything.
Having it gone immediately brought the room a little more up-to-date.
Alan's friend, Kevin, came over to help us clean the house before we moved in. "Cleaning" turned out to be watching the A&M game! That was more fun, but before he left, he did help us with one of the first projects -- taking down the doors in the dining room.
The screws had been painted over, so we had to scrape out the paint before we could take some of them out. (See how beaten up the doors are? We're planning on painting or refinishing every surface in this house...)
After the paint was scraped out, the guys went to work to take down the doors.
Victory! The doors were off.
Alan took down the remaining hardware...
...and pried away the door stops so that it wouldn't look like a door was meant to be there.
This is what was left when he removed the stops. We sanded the frame and filled the hinge holes with wood putty so it would be ready to paint.
Remember that ceiling fan? We replaced it with a chandelier we found on Craigslist and moved the fan into our bedroom.
Our next task was to score and remove the wallpaper.
Luckily, the wallpaper came down in a cinch! Click here to find out how we make taking down wallpaper a little easier. We definitely recommend using a drop cloth to keep the wallpaper from sticking to your floor!!
With the first layer of wallpaper down, it was brighter already!
Just like our last experience with wallpaper, we had to take this paper off in two layers. To make the process more interesting, we had a competition to see who could get the longest piece off without it tearing...
Can you guess who won?
Click here for the next stages of our dining room project when we frame out the window!
To read more about removing wallpaper, click here and read about our entry way project!
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