Hello everyone, hope you all had a really wonderful weekend .  Today I would like to share one of my older Olioboards.  I have a long-standing love affair with this black, white, and green color combo.  I have created more than one moodboard with these colors.  I also have used this combo in varying degrees in my own home.  I think this combination  is at the same time fresh and classic.  It can look feminine or masculine.  It’s just a good, all around, go-to.  Thanks for joining me for this Moodboard Monday!

Welcome to Walk Through Wednesday.  Today I am sharing the kitchen/dining room combo. 

Love the mix of dark wood cabinets with painted cabinets.

I am also loving the dining nook.  If I could change only one thing about my house it would be to have windows like in this nook.

I am a sucker for mixed seating, especially these happy yellow chairs. 

As always, thanks for stopping by.  Hope you have a wonderful day!

For this week’s “Inspiration” I am continuing to share pictures from the 2012 Salt Lake Parade of Homes DIY Blogger House.  This is the dining room designed by blogger Shelley from House of Smiths

I don’t know about you, but I love everything about this room.  I love the built-ins.  I love the wall treatment.  I love the door leading to the wrap around front porch  I love the light fixture created by a local company by the name of Politely Blunt Designs.

I hope I have been able to inspire you.  As always, I have been inspired to add more projects to my to-do list than I possibly have time to complete.

In my last post, I left you wondering which stencil I chose. Was it A – the paisley, B – the trellis, or C – the Victorian damask.   I chose D- none of the above.  I decided that all three were too busy for the mood I was trying to create in my dining room.

I decided that this room already had enough pattern.  I have stripes, checks, plaid damask, and floral.  I thought that what it really needed was some texture.  So, while it’s no longer the in-thing, I sponge painted.  However, I was not happy with my results.  I painted over this first attempt (above) and tried it again (below).

In the first photo, I used one color and a single sea sponge to sponge paint on to the wall.  In the second photo, I used a split sponge roller. I used two colors (brown and gold) to roll the paint on randomly.  I used a rag to rag off some of the paint.  This helped blend the roller marks.  I know there is not a huge difference in these pictures.  I think that may just be the photography.  This second photo does show a hint of the gold I used.  The second picture has much more depth and shimmer in real life.  It was definitely worth the effort to redo the fist one.  I have to add that I still like the rusticy, Tuscan look even if it may be outdated.  And if there is a moral to this story, it is, follow your heart.

Dining Set Makeover

Back in June, I gave my dining table and chairs a makeover.  I have been anxious to finish the makeover in my dining room ever since.  To date, I have painted the walls, trim and ceiling. Besides painting the dining set I also painted and stained my china hutch.   I also made some curtains and hung some of my design school homework for the gallery wall heading down stairs to the family room.  Now the kids are back in school, I have time to get back to finishing up in this room.   Here is what I have been working on.

China Hutch

I have been head-over-heals in love with the red paint on this wall (Venetian Red RLTH222 by Ralph Lauren) for years.  But, I have been trying to improve the flow of my home so I have slowly been painting every room with more neutral colors.  I now have grey, brown, and beige. I have accented with green, black, and cream.  I decided that while I love the red, it no longer fits in.

I was unsure of what to do with this wall.  I knew if I painted it the beige in the rest of the room, the china hutch would fade into the background, and I put too much time and effort into it to go unnoticed.   I wanted to pull the brown in I have in the living room and family room.  I thought it would be fun to use one of my stencils to keep the wall out of the “Blah Zone”.  As you can see from the pictures above, I made up some sample boards.  I made six all together.  Three with beige on brown (above) and three with brown on beige (not pictured).  I was having a really hard time deciding which look to go with so I turned to my friends over at Hometalk for help.  Hop on over and see why I spend more time at Hometalk than I do at Olioboard or Pinterest.  There is something there for everyone.  Membership is free and once you are a member, you can post your projects (whether you have a blog or not), look at other people’s projects, or ask questions.  I asked the Hometalk community which stencil they would choose.  I received so much help and support!  It was so useful to see things from a different perspective.  It made it so simple to decide which stencil to use.  So which one did I choose?   Well,,, I am going to be perfectly evil and make you wait for my next post to see the results.  If you can’t wait and want a sneak-peak at the results, or if you want to see  behind-the-scenes, please click the button below.