Dining Room Molding

The week after Christmas I did a few projects on my time off from work, but the biggest was adding some molding to the dining room.

Tuesday (after Xmas): After dropping H&K off at the T, I started at around 8am by taking things from the dining room down to the basement. Everything else I piled into the middle of the room. I started with the chair rail. We used all the same molding we used in the stairway, all of which we picked up at Home Depot Monday evening after dropping my Bro-in-Law (Food Boy) off at the airport. After consulting with Food Boy I decided to keep it at a height based on a shelf in the built-in. It worked out to around 33” from the floor which seemed to fit with what I’ve seen around. I had to notch out a corner to accommodate the shelf but that was pretty easy with a coping saw. (I also did something similar to this for an electrical outlet when making the wall frames, see finished product pics at end). This set into motion putting the chair rail up around the room.

At this point I thought about just leaving it with the chair rail and not going further. But we had the wood so what the hell. I then used some Kilz primer over all the red that would soon be painted white.

Then began the process of making the wall frame moldings. Food Boy and I also decided it would look best to just have one rectangle per “section”. Since the walls are all divided by windows, doorways and the built-in, it would look silly trying to make them the same size or putting two on a big wall, etc. It took me making maybe two of these before I fell into a groove and then it went pretty smoothly. I decided to caulk everything as I went so I didn’t have to do it all at the end. I also taped above the chair rail BEFORE I caulked so it made a nice seal and didn’t allow white paint to seep under it. That worked really well. I like using wood filler for nail holes and wood joints and then used caulking around the wall edges. I ended up finishing right after I picked HK up from the T, so probably around 6pm, with a break or two in between. It was tiring but now they were all up and caulked.

Wednesday: I had to leave the house by noon and would be done for the day so I started in right away again sanding everything down from the caulking. I then went around and cleaned everything off to get rid of the dust and allow the paint to stick. Then the taping. I had to tape around ALL the molding in the room so I could paint it to match. It’ll all be the same color as the crown is. I painted all the exterior surfaces of the built-in as well but didn’t go behind the glass doors, that’s another project. Anyway, I got everything prepped for painting and gave it all one coat before I had to shower up and head out.

Thursday: Another coat in the morning, then some beer stuff. A third coat in the early afternoon. Then a fourth coat in the late afternoon. Hmm…I think I can still see red? Dammit. I gave just the walls a FIFTH coat of white on Friday and was finally happy with how it looked. I may have even lost track of how many coats so it could’ve been more, who knows. Red is tough to paint and tough to paint over. After I cleaned up and put some of the room back together I took some pictures. I think it came out great and looks nice. Tones down the red a bit and give it some class. It didn’t feel like I had much a vacation but it beat having to be at work and I think it was worth it. I know my kegerator likes it.