Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working to paint the dining room (finally!)  It’s taken a lot longer than I expected, but I’m really happy with the way it’s turning out.

New Dining Room Paint

I love the color gray we finally decided on for above the chair rail.  It’s Sherwin Williams Pavestone (SW7642).  I was a little worried to start with that it would come off as too blue or too tan, but it definitely looks gray without being too dark or too stark against the white.  The bottom half of the room is Sherwin Willams Modest White (SW6084), which is the same as the trim color in the rest of the house.

I started by priming all of the freshly plastered walls with a tinted Loxon primer that’s meant for concrete block walls.  At first, I thought this was overkill considering that the walls were only skim coated, but we’ve since had a problem with paint peeling off of the walls in the foyer because they weren’t primed properly, so we’re hoping this will prevent the same problem in the dining room.  The biggest challenge with the Loxon primer was that we hadn’t planned on using a different primer for the walls than for the new wood trim pieces for the picture frame molding, so I would up having to cut in around all of the trim , which was pretty time consuming.

After the primer was dry, I’ve put one layer of top coat on all of the walls.  The gray part above the chair rail is a low-sheen eg shel finish.  I really like how deep the color looks without being shiny.  One coat on top of the tinted primer gave us really consistent color and finish, so I think I’m done painting above the chair rail.  For the portion below the chair rail, we decided to paint it in a semi-gloss enamel like all the rest of the woodwork in the house.  One coat looks good color wise, but I’m still deciding if I want to put another coat on to try to even out the finish.  I’m not sure if it’s anything anyone but me will ever notice, but I’m afraid it’ll drive me nuts if I know it’s not perfect and I don’t fix it.

I can’t wait to finally be done with all of the painting, get the light fixtures and outlet covers back up, and move the furniture back in.  I think it’s going to be a huge improvement over the old wallpaper!

We’re just finishing up a project to install picture frame molding below the existing chair rail in our dining room.  Thought I’d post what we did to install it in case it’s useful to someone else.

Step 1

Decide on the spacing to use for the picture frame molding so that it’s fairly consistent & symmetrical around the room.  Don’t worry too much about the placement of outlets, etc. in relation to where the molding will go.

For our dining room, since the chair rail is so low, we decided to use the following spacing for long, skinny rectangles on the wall:

• 2″ from the bottom of the chair rail to the top of the picture frame molding
• 2″ from the bottom of the picture frame molding to the top of the base board
• 4″ between vertical pieces of picture frame molding and corners, door casing, etc.

For help visualizing what would look right, use painters tape where the molding will be.  (Just remember to remove it relatively soon to avoid damage to the wall!)

Painters Tape to Visualize Spacing

Step 2

Use a compass to draw guide lines on the wall where the molding will go.  These lines should be parallel to any existing trim, etc. in the room.

Draw Guidelines for Molding

Step 3

Using the guide lines drawn on the wall, individually measure the exact length needed for each piece of trim.

We found that it’s not uncommon for each side of the frame to be a slightly different length, most probably because the house is old and not everything is exactly square.  We decided it was more important that the frames look level and square on the wall next to the existing trim rather than that they actually are level and square, so we used the exact measurements taken from the wall for each piece rather than assuming anything.

Step 4

For each piece measured, cut the ends of the molding at a 45 degree angle.  For this, we used a compound miter saw.  Even though our frames weren’t completely square in some cases, we only had one where we had to modify the angle from 45 degrees.

In the case where an outlet was positioned in the path of the picture frame molding, we cut it at a 45 degree angle and left a gap of about 3/4″ between the edge of the molding and the outlet covers.

Molding Around Outlets

Step 5

Starting with the top side of the frame, attach the molding to the wall with construction adhesive and a nail gun so that it’s aligned with the guide lines.  After the top side is attached, install the two vertical pieces of molding, followed by the bottom piece.  For each piece, we found it really helpful to test fit first to make sure the length and corner miters aligned correctly.

Our walls are plaster and we were concerned at first about using a nail gun for fear that it might cause the plaster to shatter.  We tested in a closet and didn’t have any problems, so we decided to use it for attaching the molding.  It worked great, with no damage to the wall, but we found that the construction adhesive was still needed to help the molding stay attached to the wall in the places where the wall was a little wavy.

Attaching the Molding

Step 6

With all of the molding attached to the wall, fill the nail holes, sand the edges off of the molding, and apply caulk around the edges of each frame to fill in any gaps between the molding and the wall.  We also used a really small amount of caulk to help fill in and smooth out the corners of the frames.

Step 7

Prime and paint the walls & new molding.

Since our walls were plaster, we needed to prime the walls with a concrete primer and the molding with a wood primer.  If we do this project again, we’d probably choose to prime the walls and molding before installing the molding to avoid all of the cutting in that was needed for the 2 different types of primers.

We chose to paint our picture frame molding and the wall behind it a semi-gloss enamel in the same color as the rest of the trim in our house.  For the outlet covers, we bought some unfinished wood ones that are being primed and painted the same color as the molding so they’ll blend in nicely.

Painting the Picture Frame Molding