The dining room

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Compared to the kitchen and bathroom, the dining room was a small project. However, I failed to mention one *teensy-tinsy* thing... we started construction October 21st, and we were hosting Thanksgiving just one month later. Nothing like having your extended family over for motivation to get the work completed!

For starters, ripping out the pantry and built-in had left a fairly gross, never-finished portion of the original flooring.

Unnngh so grossssss

 My parents very generously loaned us their sander, and we got to work starting refinishing the floor.

By we, I mean Adamo. I am not good with the sander.

Everything was blocked off, which only made the cats intensely curious about what was going on and desperate to huff sawdust. Luckily, it didn't take more than a day to finish sanding.

That may be a lie.

We still need to varnish the floor and stain the threshold to the kitchen, but we figured it would be prudent to save doing that for a time when we could open our windows.

After sanding all of the drywall patch and then vacuuming up everything, we were ready to go with paint. (In retrospect, we probably should have done all of this in reverse order.)

Taped off by Adamo

I don't know what it was about that orange paint, but I just could not paint cleanly with it. Maybe it was too cold? Adamo ended up basically doing the whole thing, what a swell fella.

Adamo is literally watching paint dry

I did help a bit with getting the edges (I am pretty good with that) and I am TOTES A PRO at taking off tape. I ended up needing to cut the paint with a utility knife. There was a lot of tape due to the plate rails along two of the walls.

They are also a little bit curved at the bottom, just to make things more fun!

 Then, finally, we remembered that we needed to put the popcorn stuff on the ceiling where the pantry and built-in had been. (Did I mention we should have done this is reverse order? We really should have.)

Adamo did the popcorny stuff because he is taller and therefore closer to the ceiling

 The popcorn ceiling texture stuff was very messy. Adamo was covered.

Poor Adamo

 VERY messy. It ended up getting all over the floor wherever the tarp wasn't covering. Luckily, it was fairly easy to clean as long as I got it while it was still wet.

so, so messy

 But I think it turned out pretty well. I find it difficult to tell were the seam is because the popcorn texture hides it. I suppose that is basically the purpose of popcorn ceilings: to disguise.

One day we will get rid of the popcorn ceilings, but this was not the day. 

I think Thanksgiving turned out fairly well, all things considered: 

Seating for 13 people

Later, we added some curtains:

Please ignore all the tools on the table

And then a mirror above the buffet/bar:

That martini light is called the drinkin' time light

I think it looks nice. 

Now I just need to find a carpet, finish the floor, reupholster the dining room chairs, and get a new-ish, not-off-center chandelier in there!