Goodbye 80s...The Dining Room Makeover

Yesterday, we officially started redecorating the dining room. It has been a much needed project, one we knew the first time we saw this house over 5 1/2 years ago would have to be done. The wallpaper is original to the house (1985) and while some think that it is nice, it just isn't our taste. And I could never get over the big brass chandelier. But we've had other projects that needed to be done first...the nursery, the playroom, Jack's big boy bedroom, the boys' Jack & Jill bath, the new deck, the landscaping, the new windows....the list goes on and on. And I was thinking that the dining room could wait a little longer, I mean after 5 years, it wasn't that pressing. Until the Thursday morning in August, when I walked in to find the chandelier sitting in the middle of the dining room table; it had been hanging appropriately from the ceiling that morning when I left. The story is that while the boys and I were out (to get out of the way of the maids), one of the maids was cleaning/dusting the chandelier. Supposedly, the cleaning was very gentle and didn't involve any pulling or swinging whatsoever (however, I have some plantation shutters that would beg to differ), and the chandelier just fell from the ceiling. Well, since the chandelier can't speak for itself, what is one to do? In the maid's defense, however, I had noticed the weekend prior to the incident that one of the links of the chandelier's chain wasn't completely closed. So I am thinking that probably all of the turning, rotating and pulling that occurred during this "gentle" cleaning allowed this link to separate from its partner and london bridge came falling down. Instead of getting angry, I took this as a divine sign that it was time to get moving on the makeover and called the decorator the next day.

The decorator and I have been meeting since September and I really love the design we have come up with. I think it is going to be elegant, sophisticated, and lovely. I say think because I don't have the gift to be able to see the completed picture before it is actually completed! So basically I am trusting the fact that I love each of the individual components and those that do have "the eye" for this (the decorator and Brent) are telling me that it is all going to come together beautifully.

The above pictures were taken Monday morning before & after the wallpaper *removal guy* arrived (I had written stripper but somehow that conjured up the wrong picture) . When he got here, he determined that the wallpaper was adhered directly to the dry wall. Not surprising, as we discovered this same problem in the Jack & Jill bath upstairs (thank you, dear contractor). So the floral wallpaper is on there until the end of time. He ended up just priming over the wallpaper, saving himself a whole lotta work, and hopefully, us a little bit of money. I think the dining room is much improved already! So continue to check back in to see the step by step transformation of the ugly duckling into the beautiful swan.