if it ain't broke... don't PAINT it

When I bought my house there was this weird room at the back of the house that really didn't have much purpose.  It was small... pink... huge holes in the walls... no closet... and oh... did I mention it was pink!
My house is old so I have the nice big ol' wood baseboards everywhere and wood trim.  Someone along the way refinished the wood, but decided that this stupid room in the back of the house didn't deserve refinishing. Instead the wood got painted... yellow... then green... then white and maybe pink in there somewhere :)
Over the last few years I've taken down the wall between the dining room and kitchen and made this room the dining room.  works great! 
I had to figure out the wood situation though, so I got on good ol' youtube and made it happen.

1) Ripped off all the wood that could come off.  Some stayed put because it would do more damage taking it off that it would just leaving it.  Patched and primed all the holes in the walls.

2) I started stripping.  I used a great product called circa 1850.  It goes on like a gel and within a minute it was bubbling up.  I used a scraper and just peeled it up.

Note:  Make sure its well ventilated... ya... I did this in the winter and it wasn't well ventilated... I was not good the next day.  I had quite the hangover.

3) Replaced the ruined wood and put back the good wood that I could salvage.  The original wood they used was beautiful fir.  I don't know about you, but I couldn't afford that.  I went to a good wood store and ended up using oak.  The stain actually blended well and I found the grain was actually quite similar in the end.

4) Then came along the stain.  I ended up trying a few different things.  I actually stripped and stained this room twice.  Stupid I know.  Honestly after the first round I stood back and looked and absolutely hated the color of the stain.  I think I was s
till high on fumes when I did it (funny part is i'm not kidding).  I really hated it.  Way too red.  So instead of whining like I wanted to... I just did it again.  really annoying, but it had to be done.  I settled on Miniwax - Polyshades in the color Red chestnut.  Perfect!  Just what I wanted. 



5) Then painted (Martha stuart color "calabash", but in bear paint). 

6) Put up crown moulding, a little ceiling detail and then voila!

Donzo!

Now I have a dining room worthy of board games and dinner party's.