What Ana Does

Now that I've done the dining room/sitting room all gray, I'm now obsessing over this slanted wall. It divides the sitting room with the foyer. Should it be: -- Gray, so it belongs to the sitting room? -- White, so it belongs to the foyer which will eventually be white? -- Navy Blue, which is the official "accent wall color" on this floor? Decisions! The Slanted Wall - What Color Should it Be?

The Wrong Chair ... Bummer You guys, this one is the wrong chair. With my dining room looking so lovely , I'm getting motivated to settle on some perfect chairs. The table was a total steal at Restoration Outlet, and is so pretty, but it's not useful unless I have chairs. Do I go with a steel chair? Painted wood? Stay with white? Find upholstered? The Restoration Outlet didn't have dining chairs that appealed to us or were priced just too high. So I've been on the hunt. I found these white steel chairs on Amazon and they looked perfect. They're called "Stella" and the description mentioned they are "classic French bistro chairs." Ohlala!!  I ordered one to test ... and I'm sad to say: it's the wrong chair.  Perfect color, great style, pretty comfy but way too low for the table. (Is the table higher than usual? Or are the chairs low?) So I am going to send it back (though, I wish I could find an excuse to keep it) a...

Here's the "After" pictures of our gray living room (or sitting room, whatever you want to call it). It now matches brilliantly with dining room. Hooray! After Picture: Looking Lovely!  View from the Dining Room We spent some time last night arranging the album covers and considering adding a row on top. I haven't a clue how I'll decorate over the long sofa with those two awkward windows -- but I'll have fun testing things out. What do you think? Related Post: See Before pictures of the living room

This weekend it was the living room's* turn to go gray. But since I had Friday off, I decided to (uncharacteristically) get it done early. This room was super easy, compared to the adjoining dining room. It's just two walls, with two small windows to work around. Within 6 hours I had the first and second coats complete, and was cleaning up. Prepped Living Room, Ready to Go Gray Like the Neighboring Dining Room. Motivated mostly by putting all the paint supplies away-away, and by not ruining a perfectly lovely weekend with the task, I overcame my minor summer-cold (sniffle, sniffle) symptoms and got to work. Only one week left before we're all in full-time work/school schedules and my glorious project time is whittled down to precious weekends. Another View: Living Room Prepped and Ready to Paint This concludes my summer wall-painting projects. There are other painting tasks on my list, but not walls... Although, I'm now considering adding a navy accen...

I ended up finishing the dining room around noon today and I'm pretty pleased with the results. No spills on the carpet -- so my worst fears were not realized -- and not too many mistakes on the trim. And the color is very warm and classy. The curtains and white furniture look especially nice. Dining Room - Complete! I'm mostly pleased I have another room ticked off my "Kill the Beige" list, which continues to be my overall motivation to paint. But, of course, there's more work to be done. The columns, which I painted white a few weeks ago, need to be finished and the window ledge needs a fresh coat of white. Completed Dining Room - Another Look Then there's the sitting room, connected to this dining room, that needs the gray treatment. I hope to tackle it over the weekend, since I have all the tools out and handy. I'm also thinking about bringing in a navy blue accent wall on this side of the room. Exciting! Connect Living Room - Awk! Wha...

It's still a freezing March day and, after huge sandwiches at The Picnic Basket (yummy), we decided to walk off lunch in the shops nearby. We dropped by the kooky little thrift shop where I picked up  this framed print  last year and found it was going out of business -- the owners are moving to Texas -- so everything in the shop was 50% off. The place is usually hit or miss, so I was delighted to find this pretty treasure of a print. Cuca Romley From a Thrift Store Beautifully-framed with the artist's name embossed below, the price of the whole thing was $25! And the colors go perfectly in the dining room -- lots of grays, blues and greens. Some Googling of the artist, named Cuca Romley , uncovered the print's name "Place Furstenberg" -- a charming square in PARIS! The artist is Spanish and born in 1933. This print is from a series of etchings she did of sweet European squares. And I love it all the more. I proudly brought it home and wiped clean the ...

Paint Chips It started with a dozen chips in the wall. Well, actually it started with Liza's suggestion to go gray in the living and dining room. Then, it was collecting a dozen chips from all the usual places. Then, taping them to the wall, in different corners to see what how the light hits each shade and which match Mr. Darcy and Ms. Lizzie ( the sofas ).  The Benjamin Moore shades were my favorite, so I got a few quarts and have made some tests on my wall. My goal is to go "GRAY" and not bluish-gray. I don't want anything too dark but I don't want to go do light -- too light that I can't tell. No matter what, it will be a heckuvalot better than the blah Beige.    Which Gray? Darker or Lighter?

I've been staring at this wall in my dining room for months. And, after a lot of browsing through design books and websites, I narrowed down my goals to these: More storage for serving pieces Not another large piece of furniture Use wood matching the dining room table So, it became obvious that shelves were what I wanted.  Before - Empty Dining Room Wall A few trips to all the hardware stores over the last month helped me narrow down available supplies, so when I was ready, here's what I shopped for: Three pine boards Pre-Stain "Classic Gray" wood stain Sanding blocks Six shelf brackets (in a stainless steel) Lug screws - 18 (extras just in case) I was able to keep well under my budget on this one (under $100) -- which just puts more cash into my dining room curtain budget. Yay! After - Shelves Ready for Dishes & More Here are the steps: First, stain the pine shelf boards from Home Depot with pre-stain, then "classic gray" wo...

When Liza and Eric were visiting last weekend, Liza suggested a moody gray for the dining room/living room. And I thought, "why didn't I think of that!" (I might have even said it aloud.) It will look great with navy and green (my overall house colors) and show off the black frames and the white buffet. In a word: genius! Got all the grey paint chips today to compare and hope to have a large test on the wall by Monday. Banning the Beige!  Now to figure out if it's "gray" or "grey." Editor's Note: In the US, we prefer to use "gray" ... but in the UK, they like the "e" in "grey." So it really only matter where you are when you use GRAY.  Related posts: More dining room plans