Time to Dine

We have a COMPLETE DINING ROOM that is thankfully VERY far from where we started! We have been enjoying our finished room for a little over a month. We couldn't be happier with the results and I am excited to share the details with you all! 

Let me start by describing our style, this might be helpful as you see this project and future projects unfold. The Hubs favors traditional style and I favor modern (particularly mid-century modern) and together we seem to find a good balance that both of us LOVE. Here's a perfect example of our meshed style (photo from West Elm):

When it comes to board and batten, We LOVE the clean lines it dishes up and the traditional element it adds to a home. Kind of the perfect fit for our combined style and our VERY traditional home.

The EXTRA piece of motivation was finding the PERFECT inspiration picture, on Pinterest of course! Here's the inspiration photo of the pattern we wanted to use for our board and batten.

Great right! So we had our inspiration layout, now we needed the right tools and the materials. The Husband was a LITTLE more than excited to be getting some new tools (including a miter saw, nail gun and air compressor). For materials we choose a thick detailed molding for the baseboard. We love the detail and weight it provides to the room and double bonus we didn't need to add quarter round, time and cost saver! For the rest of the wood we used 2 1/2" x 1/4" pine wood general purpose trim . I've read about a cost saving trick on a few blogs to cut strips of MDF boards to size but with this being our first time tackling trim we wanted to use real wood and the FOR SURE straight option. So we opted for maybe not the cheapest route but we couldn't be happier with the outcome so we wouldn't change a THING!! Even the cost.

As for the paint color we decided NOT to use a standard pure white. We painted some of our surviving trim stark white and with the lighting in our house it ended up looking like primer, so we went for what we know and LOVE the same "white" we painted our cabinets in the kitchen. We used Behr, Swiss Coffee (apartment therapy voted best off white! SCORE! just found this link) in satin finish. It has a great taupe tint with NO YELLOW it really adds depth and doesn't come off flat like the stark pure white did.

As far as spacing goes we did a little bit of playing around and tried to decide what would look best, serve some function and create balance. First we choose to work off the center point of the window on the back wall of the dining room. The next thing we needed to decide was height and spacing. We kept the first horizontal row the same height as the previous chair rail. This would conceal the dry wall damage and was also a good starting height to achieve the look we wanted. The next thing we decided was the spacing between each vertical row. To add balance we opted to make the main vertical rows the same distance between the base board and the first horizontal row (previous chair rail, 25 1/4 inches). Then we had to decide how high we wanted the top vertical row, our deciding factors were what ascetically looked best, avoiding electrical components like the light switch and thermostat and lining the molding up to where our chairs actually hit on the wall. After finishing our spacing plan it was time to measure, cut, glue, nail and repeat....lots and lots.

One MAJOR thing that we learned and I think got right was measuring every vertical board exactly for the space, instead of cutting the boards in mass and then putting them in. Nothing is EVER perfectly true and measuring and cutting for each particular space provided the tightest fit possible resulting in a seamless look with minimal caulking and filling (my handy Hubs deserves all the credit for this). Doing this definitely added work on the front end but MUCH less finishing work and in the long run it makes it look really professional and polished.

As the Hubs cut and hung boards. I was filling nail holes, sanding, priming and then painting. We primed the walls twice to cover the orange as best we could and then did three coats of Behr Swiss Coffee satin finish. After the second coat of paint I went through the room and caulked any gaps between boards or between the wall and boards. Basically any space that didn't look seamless, this step was minimal do to measuring mentioned above. Finally I applied the final coat of paint and VOILA!!

little ladies sunny high chair looks pretty cute in the space too! Not too shabby! At some point we may add a rug under the table and of course will probably change photos out and the arrangement, but for now we are LOVING it!

A reminder of where we started:

Here we are now:

As far as cost, we spent about $350 on wood and supplies, like paint, brushes and tape. This doesn't include the cost of the new tools as these will be used on LOTS and LOTS of other projects and is something we planned for and saved to buy.

What is your personal style? Does it match your mates? How do you incorporate the two? Have you found your perfect "white"? Have you added any architectural details to your home?

That's my Shiny ~

J