We liked much about the “old” living room, but it was always dark, even on a sunny day. We wanted to keep the walls red, but the red color that was there reminded us of cream of tomato soup. We wanted a livelier red! We also thought long and hard about painting the pine wainscoting. I scoured the Internet for “inspiration” photos of painted wainscoting before we decided to move ahead.
The renovation took us three days to complete. Because we were covering red walls with more red, the walls only required one coat of paint. The dark wainscoting took most of our time. It needed a coat of oil-based primer followed by three (yes, three) coats of semi-gloss latex paint.
A picture does say a thousand words, so I’ve included several shots that will quickly walk you through the project. We couldn’t be more pleased with the results. The room is now bright and welcoming. As an added benefit, it looks much larger. Let us know what you think! Better yet, come visit us at the Troy-Bumpas Inn in Greensboro, NC, and see for yourself.
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- This shot shows how we changed the dull, tomato red to a more vivid and happy geranium red.
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- Once the walls were painted, we moved onto painting the wainscoting.
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- The new, updated living room is much brighter and seems larger.
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- The wainscoting is a light, cream color.
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- A shot of the mantel, with sunshine streaming in the southern facing windows.
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- Part of the facelift included cleaning all the curtains.
Tags: living room update, painted wainscoting, Troy-Bumpas Inn