One down, two to go...

That's painting projects.  Okay, wait.  Let me be more specific.  That's ROOM painting projects.  We got the dining/living/hall/entry done this weekend.  Thanks to my AWESOME in laws, it was a breeze.  A five-hour, hot-because-we-took-down-the-shades breeze.

So, without further ado, here's a before (as in, WAY before - when we first looked at the house before we bought it!) shot into the dining room, from the living room:

Sorry, it's a little dark.  But, it shows off the lovely monochromatic look of the joint quite perfectly.

NOW, here's the after, from a different angle into the dining room, with a snippet of the kitchen beyond:

You'll have to excuse both the mess and the blurriness of the pic.  Painting is messy business, and my cell was the only camera I had on me.  :)  You can see how the new walls go with the feature wall (blue) and the orange (hmmm...it looks kinda salmon-y in this shot...) of the kitchen.  I also like that you can't see any of the golden oak trim that I'm dying to get rid of.  It makes the room look even nicer.

Here's a close-up of the three colors together:

I love them together!  Just a little cleanup of the lines, and we'll be good to go!

Up next:

Painting my Nana's dresser a lacquered black and moving it to the dining room to act as a kind of buffet table.  It'll go under those floating shelves on the blue wall.  My "nice" china (read:  the stuff that NEVER gets used...), table linens, and candle paraphernalia will make their home there.

Currently in the works, I need to finish painting a side table (a groovy 70s number with a built-in magazine rack) and an old coffee table a shiny white.  Our small jungle of houseplants will be living on the coffee table, and I'm not exactly sure where the side table will go - probably between this great set of old chairs I bought from my friend Erin (one is in the pic above - under the floating shelves!), which will be migrating to the living room until I twist my husband's arm enough to buy a new couch.  :)

Up next in room painting:

Another bedroom and the family room.  How many coats of paint and primer do you think it'll take to cover up this red??

Especially if we go with a lighter color. We're currently thinking a lighter celery green up and a darker moss green down, using the ledge that runs around about half the room as a dividing point. All that wood will be going white. Or, in the case of the fireplace, stone.

Long post short - it was a good weekend.