Topic: Dining Room Upgrade

[landofoz]

We're are on the brink of starting to upgrade (not remodel) the house, so that we can sell it quickly and for a bit more than we paid.  Our first project is our dining room which is 8x9.  It is small but has a nice window to the backyard.  It also has revolting mega-glued down berber carpet from late 1980's and plywood glued half-way up the wall.  We are discussing some options and would LOVE some input!  First the pics:



First off, we are very seriously considering putting down some laminate flooring on top of the hideous carpeting.  That stuff is seriously glued down and I doubt we can get it up.  We'd probably skip the padding but put down a moisture proofing layer underneath the flooring.  Flooring, I think, should be very light, like maple or oak, to help open and brighten the room.  Opinions, thoughts? 

Second is the carpet on the bottom of the wall.  We're going to try to strip that off with adhesive remover and a scraper.  The remover is apparently highly-toxic so I'm thinking we'll do that in small increments.  Once that is off, we're not sure what to do with the walls.  The revolting 1/4 inch plywood is GLUED on.  The trim on the top is nailed on but everything else is glued, including the bottom trim and corner trim.  To remove the plywood, we would have to remove the drywall, replace the insulation (it's blown-in cellulose), mud, and repaint.  This is too close to remodeling for me.  Other ideas we had were to mud over the plywood and paint it, maybe with a sand paint to give it texture.  Another idea, one I really like, is simply putting beadboard over the plywood painting it white, adding white trim at the top, and then painting the wall a lovely grey-bluey color.  Like this:   
Do you think having a half inch of wood-products on the wall would be noticeable, tacky, bad?  Any suggestions at all??

[sunsoaker]

Do you have a slab foundation?  If so, it's probably cement behind the part of the carpet that goes up the wall. That is the way it was in my first house. So you will need to take that into account. I like the beadboard idea. Does the plywood sit "on top" of the edge of the carpet that's on the wall? If so, your bead board would prob stick out further than the 1/2" you're thinking 'cause you'll need to come out far enough to cover that part.  Personally, if done with the right chair rail trim to try and camoflauge (sp?) how far it sticks out, I think your idea would work great. I even like your choice of colors.

[landofoz]

No, our house is only on a partial cement slab foundation.  Originally the house was 15x15 (back in 1926), and that has a slab but the rest of it, including bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and dining room are just dirt.  Creepy looking dirt at that.  The house itself is probably 2.5-3 feet off the level of the dirt though.

If we go with the beadboard idea, then I think we'll put some filler 1/4 MDF/plywood/whatever in place of the carpet on the wall. 

[barleychown]

Beadboard is beautiful, but can get expensive. That is something to keep in mind.

If possible, it would be nice to have pics, both inside and out, so we can see the whole picture, before suggesting things. It's important to maintain a common sense of style/theme throughout, otherwise the house ends up feeling way smaller due to lack of flow.

[landofoz]

The following is to be used for non-stalking purposes only.  In the event you wish to stalk after continuing, please be aware that you simply can not due to this disclaimer.  

The outside of our house is shanty-shabby and it's 86 years old.  We got insurance money to repaint it, so it will be a brighter, freshly painted white this fall.  


Now for the inside pics.
The first pic is what you see when you walk in the front door.  (sorry folks but I didn't clean for the pics!)  The second pic is if you walked straight and are standing in the first threshold (to the kitchen) that you see in the first pic.  The last pic is the corner of our dining room and shows the back door to the house.  Hopefully this gives you a better idea of flow, etc.


Hopefully this link to Lowe's works and you can see my color choices (only using one blue color though, I just can't choose which!).  Click on dining rooms and the one with beadboard on it.  Hopefully it works!!

[UNCLEG]

I would use a textured paintable wall paper over the Plywoodand top off with some nice chair rail and Baseboard, but I would paint the plywood first.  Textured wallpaper come is a varity of styles and dress up any room and it hides a world of building sins.  It cane be found at any Lowes or Home Depot type store.

Hope that helps,

G

[landofoz]

I've never seen textured wallpaper.  I'll have to keep an eye out next time we're there.  

*edit I checked online and there is one that looks a bit like beadboard.  How easy is it to paint this though and get the paint down in the little nooks and crannies??

[Bonnie]

If you are thinking about putting laminate flooring on top of the berber, it would probably be a good idea to check with someone in the know. I have put down laminate flooring in all but two of my rooms. It seems to me that the berber would be too thick under the flooring
because the laminate floor is a floating floor. I hope it works for you.

[barleychown]

Oh, I like Uncle G's idea! It would look good, and not be a huge investment. If you use a roller meant for deep texture, you should be able to paint it with no problems.

I agree with Aunt Bonnie, the berber would just be too thick, unfortunately.

(And I promise not to stalk you!  )

I'll keep this in the back of my mind today and see what ideas I can come up with for you. 

[landofoz]

Maybe Berber is the wrong word?  The carpeting is super-compressed/short looped stuff, only maybe a 1/4 inch thick.  It's very shallow and the guy at lowe's said that laminating over it shouldn't be an issue.

We priced the textured wallpaper last night and it will cost us about $30 to cover the plywood.  Which is a great price.  I'm really hoping that we can get a good start on it this weekend.

[landofoz]

Well, almost 4 hours of work, the majority of it Adam working, and we discovered carpet that just peeled right up, and the nasty plywood just came right off the wall.  It was pretty sweet.  So now we can put up real beadboard.  The flooring is actually hardwood flooring and we're going to bypass the laminate flooring and just sand it, stain, and refinish it. 

[Triss]

Oh how awful to cover up such beautiful hardwood floors.  I am glad you found it all could be removed.

[landofoz]

Yeah - we figured about $500 or so for laminate flooring (includes doing the kitchen also), so it's great that we can save that.  Unfortunately, it's easy to find somewhere else to put extra money!  Adam wants to replace the window (it just started to leak) and I want to have a real back door -- our back door is just a hollow bedroom door.  So here, I think, it what we've decided to do:

Paint ceiling (apparently it's yellowy).
Replace light (it's also colors everything yellow and dirty).
Sand, stain, and poly kitchen and dining room.
Paint walls Martha Stewart Blue Ticking.
Apply beadboard, with new bottom trim and possibly reusing the old trim (Adam took care not to destroy it) for the top trim.  Paint white.
Replace window on West wall (the one right in front of the camera)
Remove window on North wall (to the right of the door).
Insulate stinking north wall (I can't believe it's not insulated!!!)
Replace back door.

Sure sounds more like remodeling and not upgrading like I wanted to do. . . especially for a 72 sq ft area!   

[Tina]

That is a lot of work and a bit of money. I hope it all pays off for you. Truly great to find a decent floor under the carpet.

[UNCLEG]

Just a suggestion if you are sprucing things up to sell this property, I would avoid bold colors like blue and stick with the more neutral tones of paint. It helps the prospective buyer picture how their belongings would look in the house.  None of my business, but just a thought.

Good Luck,

G

[sunsoaker]

It does sound like a lot of work, mainly the window and door. Suggestion for the door, shop used/salvage and paint. Solid core exterior doors are expensive.  You lucked out to find the hardwood floor underneath the carpet! Keep us posted on the progress.

[landofoz]

G, thanks!  The rest of the house is already beige and will be repainted beige.  The exceptions are my daughters' bedroom and the dining room.  I've always wanted it blue with white beadboard/wainscot!  And I've waited 7 years not to have it.  To my credit though, blue is the most well-liked color and is the traditional pairing with the wainscotting; so at least I've got something going for me there.

Adam is back at Lowe's and he's picking up stuff to take care of removing the North window and taking care of all that crap - drywall, 2x4's, etc.  So I'm guessing not much work will go on today.  The girls and I will be gone for most of Saturday, so Adam should have plenty of time to work on it.  I wish he'd let me help out more but he's very perfectionistic and I never do a good enough job for him.  He says it's much easier to have me "baking cookies" than doing something that he'll have to remove and do again.  I'm just trying to ignore the insult and enjoy that I have a get-out-of-work-free card. 

[landofoz]

I'm just wondering who sells used stuff??  We don't have any second-hand hardware stores around here...  Maybe Wichita has something.  Thanks for the great idea, Barb!

Adam worked on the window once he got home.  The man is really careful not to just destroy stuff as he removes it.  *boring!*  But, he doesn't make a big mess and didn't tear up the drywall or anything.  We framed up the opening and put some plywood on the back part that is in the breezeway.  Adam found a great piece of drywall at lowe's for only $1, but it had the paper torn for about a foot on one edge!  It worked out great, 'cause we only need a bit of drywall to patch up this hole.

[duh]

It looks like it is going great.  And you are lucky to have Adam and great cookie recipes lol.  Keep us posted.

[Triss]

Adam sure is making quick progress!

[Dianna]

By the time y'all get it fixed up the way you want it to be able to sell it, y'all want wanna move!

[landofoz]

   Dianna, with only 600 sq ft and with anything short of putting in an in-ground pool -- I'll still want to move!  It's just soooooooooo tiny!!  I just may want to take my dining room with me!

[landofoz]

Adam is methodical.  He also does some things which I do not understand and which seem like a waste of time, money, and effort.  He decided that we should peel off all the fraying/torn paper which will be covered by the beadboard, so he can mud them up and then prime them.  He wants the wall to look good as new for anyone who removes the beadboard.  Only problem is, he can mud well, and once the drywall gets torn, it's really, really hard to get it too look nice again.  But, who the heck am I to tell him that?!  Last night we got the insulation in, the drywall up and some mudding done.  I took an extra pic of my wall color, too.  I know it's very dramatic but I think it will work.  Do you think it's too dark for such a small room though?? 

 

[Dianna]

That is a bit dark for me in a small room, Sarah Loo. Did you see any lighter blue colors that you liked?

[sunsoaker]

I'm thinking maybe a bit lighter dusty blue shade would look great with the white beadboard.