Seeing Stripes in the Dining Room!

While we wait for our schedules and the weather to align to get those finishing touches done in the backyard, I got ants in my pants and jumped all over a different project I have been wanting to do for awhile now.

Stripes.

In the dining room.

Love.

Let's rewind though.  Sometimes I get really excited and work in random ways.  Last year we painted the wall down our stairs with Glidden's Smooth Stone, and I instantly fell head over heals in love with the color, and knew right then and there that it would be the new color of our adjoining kitchen/dining area.  We have giant dreams and plans for kitchen updates, and painting the walls is just the tiniest piece of those ideas.

Our dining area is attached to the kitchen and also to the living room, here is a quick reminder of the room.

I love a lot of what is going on already, but in all honesty, I have grown tired of the brown on brown on brown walls and furniture.  The Smooth Stone greige has gray undertones, which will allow me to play more with color within the other finishes.  It is also a much lighter and brighter tone than the Behr Teepee and Behr Belgian Sweet that is currently on the walls.

And stripes!  I wanted big bold stripes.  I am a stripe addict when it comes to anything and everything {my work tote, clothing, curtains, rugs and walls}.  I love that stripes are classic yet playful and make a statement. 

We already had the gallon of Smooth Stone on hand from the stairs, so this project was just a quick trip to home depot for a quart of the stripe accent color; I selected Martha Stewart's Picket Fence.

For now, I am just giving my attention to the focal wall of the dining room and the hallway.  The darker color will stay for now, but ultimately will go as well.

Here you can see the difference in colors.  I started out by painting the entire focal wall and hall in the Smooth Stone paint.

Everything instantly felt a thousand times brighter and happier.  I am such a fan.

Once I had the walls coated, I called in my measuring man.  I told him that since the wall was so tall, that chunkier stripes is what I was after.  So instead of our standard 12" stripes {like we did in the boy's shared bedroom}, we went with 16" stripes instead.

Bryan started by measuring from the trim up the wall, 16 inches and making small marks with his pencil.  Then he connected his marks with tape, and repeated the same steps all the way up the wall.

Once the tape was on the wall, I used my brush and went over the edges of the paint with the same Smooth Stone that was beneath the tape.  This is what creates a super smooth line when the tape is pulled from a textured wall.

Here is the beginning of the Picket Fence color going up.

I started by using my brush to trim out all of the trim, outlets, and edges.  Then I rolled the rest.

Even though Smooth Stone is pretty light, I still needed to do two coats of the Picket Fence over the top.

When it finally came time to pull the tape, I got the happiest tingles ever.  Something about seeing that perfect straight line... sigh...

This is right after the tape is pulled.  The paint was still wet from the second coat of paint, but I always try and pull the stripe tape when the paint is wet.  It prevents the paint from peeling off of the wall.  And you get a complimentary messy table along with those beautiful stripes.

Once the paint was dry, we placed everything back and just gazed.....

The stripes not only made the dining area lighter and brighter, but they also seemed to make the ceilings feel even taller.

And those glorious stripes.  They make the prettiest backdrop to the buffet, shelf and accessories.

The flowers in the green pitcher are from a large bush in front of our home.

I purchased a few accessories for the area, but it still has a little ways to go.  The starburst mirror was this one from Home Depot for $35, and it was the perfect size for the space.  The larger mirror I had DIY'ed previously will be moved to another spot in the house where it is scaled a bit more appropriately.

The small art print is a card from Etsy, and it's a saying we giggle about here, since we love to believe that it is true.

I added an oldie IKEA lamp to the table to offer some night light in the area for little boys who roam in the night to the potty.  All of the other accessories were snagged from around the home. 

All in all this super simple little stripe project really got me excited for what is to come in the kitchen space.  They really smile at you when you walk in, and you can't help but smile back.

Here is the oh-so-happy before and after shot.  Wowza!

SO much better!

As you can see above, I took down the white curtains.  I am seeking out something with oodles of color, or even just an awesome bold pattern.  I haven't found the perfect solution, yet, but I will be sure to share when I do {it could be that I stencil the white panels or sew up something new out of amazing fabric}.  I also may end up tossing a bold color on the buffet.  We still have the beautiful wood table and hope to put in darker wood floors down the road so that would be a lot of wood tone going on.  Only time will tell what this "spur of the moment" gal will do next!