Dining room chair rail

Right before you have 6 house guests coming is the correct time to start a project right??

This was our dining room on Sunday. The chair rail has always been highly annoying, its basically a window molding and its so low my chairs leave marks on the walls. Its bugged us for 10 years.

Dining Room before

We pulled off the chair rail and discovered this craziness. Bright pink paint and dark pink, gray, blue wallpaper.

Left wall of DR

The other side of the wall had a different wallpaper. Who used to own this house anyway? Romper room? I'm ignoring the signs of water damage. 

Right side of DR

Now after many, many pencil marks, a compound miter saw that was used for something other than collecting dust, a laser level, and lots of finishing nails, we have a paint-ready product!

The new chair rail is 4 inches higher and prettier.

We used 2 pieces of trim - a baseboard and a chair rail - to make it a little beefier. Jeff cut the exposed ends to 45 degrees.

Close-up of the chair rail

And of course we had to upgrade the thermostat to this fancy model, the Nest. When the light is off, I pretend its HAL and that its watching me.

Just needs wood putty, paint, and I have to decide if I'm going to really upgrade the whole thing with navy blue wallpaper. I'm sure HAL will tell me what to do...