Paint and Faux Wainscoting

I finally finished painting (and re-painting!) and putting up the faux wainscoting a la Thrifty Decor Chick!

Here's the before:

not a terrible wall color, but I was wanting something lighter and brighter. So, I picked a really pale green, primed and painted two coats and got this:


and I hated it. Ugh. I was really not looking forward to trekking back to Lowe's, picking another color, spending more money on another can of paint, spending another day painting and hoping for the best. Then it occcured to me- I had half a can of green paint that was too dark, and half a can of green paint that was too light. I couldn't use either one so I had nothing to lose. I poured the contents of one can into the other and mixed thoroughly and got this:


and I love it! The color doesn't look quite the same on my monitor as it does in real life, probably because of the flash. I'll try to get better photos when the light improves. For now you'll just have to take my word for it- it's the perfect medium-light gray-green. I actually compared the color to some paint swatches and the resulting color bears a striking resemblance to "Garden Shed" from Martha Stewart's paint line.

Also- if you look behind the chinese chippendale chair (which is due for reupholstering) you can see my faux wainscoting! I'm really excited to tell you about this because I found I a great short cut! I was all set to use Thrifty Decor Chick's instructions. I went to Lowe's and marched myself down the molding aisle, giving myself a pep talk about saws and mitre boxes when I spotted this:


premade molding squares! They're made of lightweight poly so all I had to do was glue them to the wall with all purpose liquid nails, caulk any gaps and paint! They come in different sizes so you can choose the one that works best for your walls. The 18 x 23 size worked great for me. I believe that was the largest size and they were about $12 per panel (the smaller sizes were a few dollars less). I spent just over $100 to do the whole room. I bet buying the molding and doing all the cutting myself would have saved me money, but I am so freaked out about saws, that it was worth it to me to buy these ready made.

I'm pretty happy with the finished product:


BTW- what do you think of my new (to me) rug via CL? It's a 6x9 Restoration hardware basketweave seagrass rug. It still sells for $249 but I got it for $50!

Next up in here:

• reupholster Chinese Chippendale chairs
• Change the backing in the China Cabinet
• Art and accesories!

Love,

Easy Pinch-Pleat Drapes

Voila!


When I started thinking about refreshing my dining room I knew I wanted pinch pleated drapes. After reading this post at LGN I was pretty convinced that using pleating tape and pleater hooks was the way to go, but when I decide I want to do something I'm waaaay to impatient(and cheap!) to order something online (and pay shipping for it!). Lucky for me, my local Joann's fabric sells the pleater hooks and a very similar pleating tape by the yard!

The hooks look like this:


and the tape looks like this:

Those white vertical lines that look like stripes are actually little pockets woven into the fabric. You make a simple rectangular panel and then sew this tape to the top edge. Then you insert the four prongs of the hooks into every other stripe-pocket (leaving several inches between each hook) to form the pinch pleats. So easy! And goof-proof!

I'm really pleased with how they turned out and I love this fabric!



(excuse the mess on the sideboard! )


I also got all the trim and the walls below the chair-rail painted! Next up (if I can get over my fear of saws!) Faux wainscoting ala Thrifty Decor Chick!

Love,