All through this process I’ve been asking (admittedly, sometimes whining) “Is it time to paint yet? Now? How ’bout now?”
Yes, Kelli. NOW it is time to paint.
“Woo hoo!!” *Kelli does a little happy dance*
I started with the Merlot paint for the bottom section of the room.
First coat looks more like Kool-Aid than Merlot, but I’m gonna go with it.

I did the very first coat with a brush because the wall is so uneven and has so many imperfections. I wanted to make sure to get paint in all the little nooks and crannies before I started going over it with a roller.

I cut the corners in with the brush one more time so I could use the roller next and not get too close to the edges. With this second coat the color’s starting to come through nice and rich.

After the first pass with the roller. You can see that I’ve cut the corners in with the Bone White above too.

With the first coat of Merlot drying below, I tackled the first coat of Bone White. I left a little undone for this pic so you can see the contrast between the paint color and the primer.

Also, a quite note about the woodwork: I intend to strip all the woodwork to expose the original wood, but since that’s time consuming and I needed a project that would show me fast results, I just stripped the outer edges where I’d have to put masking tape. I did a couple of extra spots to expose the wood and show what it would look like later, so you can see the top corner of this window is done and the top corner of the attic door is also done. I’ll do the rest after I’m done painting.
Check back soon for Part 4 in which… I’m still painting. Guess which color.





3 users commented in " Painting the dining room: Part 3 "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackGlad to see you are getting to the paint stage! For future dark color painting (it’s too late for the living room) You can start with a tinted primer - that will help with the number of coats it takes to get a solid dark color.
Thanks Steve! Yeah, I thought about tinted primer. Luckily, this is the only dark section I’ve got in the plans so far. If I do any more in other rooms, I’ll certainly consider a tinted primer for those.
I bought an old (l847) row house in downtown St. Louis, MO 4 years ago - I was 67 yrs old then and now 71 - My general contractor has passed away and left me with a half done house - Now I am about to give it back to the bank - but I have really enjoyed going thru your site and seeing your experience. I feel badly that I was not able to finish mine. It would have been a beautiful place. ( As yours will be also).
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