Halloween Art Gallery Update

My winter project this year is switching my dining room and Halloween art gallery rooms so that I'd have more room for my art collection. My original schedule was to have the dining room moved and finished by the end of January, leaving February and March for the art gallery space. I'm a little behind schedule- no surprise there, but have enough of the dining room done to give you a peek.

This was the Halloween art gallery as I was taking it apart to re-design it as the dining room.

I stripped the room bare and started painting.

The wall color choice is based on a purple I use throughout the downstairs. There are different tones of this purple, but it's used in our laundry room, kitchen, living room and the former dining room. It's sometimes used as an accent wall and sometimes covers all the walls. Grey also features largely throughout the downstairs. (That's Uncle Rufus in the photo who supervised me the entire time.)

I knew that I didn't want the energy of orange nor the gloom of grey while we were eating, so I decided to go with the deeper purple color called Showstopper (Behr). This was a decision I agonized over a bit, but really like how it turned out. I painted two small walls that lead into the dining room orange (a deeper orange than the room had previously been.)

The new dining room is a much smaller room, so I'm putting no other furniture in it but the dining room table. I added a Ruggable washable rug (because cats) in grey under the table to link it to the grey kitchen floor and walls, and anchor the table in the room.

This weekend I moved the mirrored wall from the former dining room and spread it over two walls. (You can see the original dining room wall here) If you're ever going to be hanging a bunch of mirrors or paintings you definitely need to cut a template of each one out of paper (I use old wrapping paper) and then tape them to the wall and play with them until you get the right combination. Make sure you mark where the nail hole needs to go on the paper as you trace the frames. It makes it so much easier to hang the pieces. I just left the paper up and hammered in the nails where I had marked. Then I removed the paper and the mirrors went up easily without having to move them a few inches here or there. The mirrors really open up the space. It's weird, but works. By the way, I purchased almost all the mirrors at various thrift stores for a few bucks each and then painted them all glossy black.

I still have two large walls to decorate and I'm contemplating a couple of ideas. While I ruminate on that, I'm going to start prepping the Halloween art gallery walls for a fresh coat of paint. Most likely the same color.

I know this isn't a very spooky post, but the dining room is part of creating the mood for the Halloween art gallery. The rooms in our house flow from one space to the next so I want them to feel connected.

Hopefully my next re-decorating post will start featuring the Halloween art gallery and lounge. Thanks for following along!