Halloween Art Gallery: Oh what a difference a week makes

Panoramic photo of the Halloween art gallery being emptied

Last week I talked about my 2023 project to redesign our Halloween art gallery room in our house. Over the weekend, I started taking down shelves, rearranging furniture, and pondering the color of the walls. Once the room was fairly empty, I started thinking about how I could add some furniture to the room so that I, or others, could actually sit there and use it. 

You see, the room gets little use unless someone is just standing there looking at my collection. That is fairly rare. I thought maybe a few chairs and a low table or maybe just a reading nook would work, but as I dragged chairs into the room, I realized it was too small for all the things I wanted. 

Then I caught my husband just standing in the empty room looking around. I asked him how he thought we could use the room and the words I had been dreading came forth from his lips "I think we should make it the dining room again and move the gallery to the double parlor." I whined a little and tried to dismiss his opinion, but deep down I knew it was true. This is something I had been not wanting to admit because now my big project became huge! 

And did I mention the cost? To make the former gallery-now dining room workable I really need a new dining room table. Perhaps something round on a pedestal. That means I have to find a space for our current heirloom dining room set that my grandfather made! You don't just sell that on Marketplace.

Breathe.

Here is what does make sense about this new plan. The current dining room is already painted purple which is what I was leaning towards for the gallery. Most of the art is orange and really fades against the current orange walls (Valspar Warm Cider), and did I really need two purple rooms? Also, we have a non-working fireplace in our current dining room that we talk about making useable someday, but would we really light a fire while we sat in the dining room? Doubtful. Light a fire and sit in the gallery? Highly likely! And, my sister jokingly added that if I ever wanted to give a tour of the Halloween art the new space has two doors that lead right to the front door without having to go through other rooms. 😂

So, here is the plan as it stands. Empty and temporarily store all the Halloween art while I patch and repaint the orange walls. I'm considering doing something very artsy. Next I'll start moving the current dining room art into the old gallery space and look for a dining table- if that takes awhile I'll use the one we currently have even though it's a bit cramped.

Once the dining room is moved, I'll start patching and repainting the new gallery space and moving the art back into the room. I'm hoping to move the dining room by the end of January. That leaves me February and March to work on the new gallery space. 

Our current dining room soon to be Halloween art gallery

What chance do you think there is that next week I'll be back here with an entirely new idea?

P.S. Read the first post here