My Husband Has Serious Skills

Okay, so I'm going to reveal the "project" that we've been working on the past week or so.  The problem is, it is not completely finished.  But I need advice.


I've wanted to do something to the lower portion of my dining room walls for a long time.  We actually painted our whole house the color of the background of my dining room wallpaper all those years ago.  I still love my wallpaper but in recent years I have been embracing more color in the rest of my house.  Plus, it is very hard to keep the off white colored walls "clean" with a St. Bernard in the house.

So while my hubby was at school a couple weeks ago I went for it and painted the color that I wanted below the wallpaper.

And it was good.  But I didn't want to stop there.  


I've always loved the look of wainscoting in dining rooms.  But I certainly didn't want to PAY to have any made or anything like that.  So I researched do it yourself stuff online and found a great way to do it myself.  Or, I should say, have my husband do it!  


So when I introduced the idea very haltingly, he went for it.  I couldn't believe it.  Truthfully, I thought it would be far less labor intensive than it was but I'm thankful that he was willing.

So we started with a room that looked like this. It had red curtains which I moved to my son's room upstairs after cleaning them.


Let's just say, a LOT of painting and cutting of MDF was done in the first few days.  MDF is really cheap.  We used 2 sheets and had just about no waste.


We removed the floor trim.  Added a wide molding made from the MDF and a rail on the top side.

Already a huge change in how it looks!  


Then we added molding on top made of simple pieces of smaller MDF  that looked like this:

Then the stiles were added.  Most of them were simple strips of wider pieces of MDF but around the windows they had to be cut out very carefully.

Not the window but that photo would not upload!

Next, we decided to add a molding up near the ceiling to hide the fact that I had had to order the wallpaper before we even built the house and took the measurements from the house plans.  We had just enough wallpaper but when our cousin put it up he had to do what he could with what we had!  So now it looks more finished.  Of course that meant more painting!

And cutting!

Now I am thrilled that it is done for all intents and purposes.  We need to do some caulking and touch up painting but it looks great!

Only problem I am having is this:  the paint seems to be a bit lighter than what I had picked out (even though there is about 3 coats on everything!).  I used the color swatch to pick out new curtains at Target and then I sent for the ones I wanted in the correct length.  Now they seem too dark when what I wanted was a look that was kind of seamless color from up high to down low.  Will that make a difference????

In this picture they do not look any different in color but in person they do.  

What do you think???????