Yet another paint (but not color) question.

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As I was cleaning and patching plaster today I came across a couple of areas that I'm not really sure what I should do with paint-wise.

Since we're going to have to wait on the wainscotting for a while, I'm going to paint the lower portion (C) of the dining room walls. This is a bit of a problem since the chair rail (B) doesn't reach the edge of the doorway (it's an arch with no trim work around it):

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v667/boomerangagain/House/th_rail2.jpg

Should I continue the trim color (ivory) through that little gap, or try to split the color between the top wall color (yellow) and the lower wall color (brown), or what?

In the living room there is this cabinet/niche thing:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v667/boomerangagain/House/niche.jpg

I'm thinking the cabinet will be painted the trim color (ivory again) and the wall (A) brown but I'm unsure of what to do with the B and C areas.

Should they all be the wall color?
Should C be the wall color and B be something else?
Should B and C be something other than the wall color?

Thanks for any suggestions!

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[+3] - tsarstepan - 11/26/2013Just in case anyone needs some advanced painting tips, here's one: [img]http://www.channelate.com/comics/2013-11-07-tnt.png[/img] [url]http://www.channelate.com/2013/11/07/dynamite/[/url]

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

As I was cleaning and patching plaster today I came across a couple of areas that I'm not really sure what I should do with paint-wise.

Since we're going to have to wait on the wainscotting for a while, I'm going to paint the lower portion (C) of the dining room walls. This is a bit of a problem since the chair rail (B) doesn't reach the edge of the doorway (it's an arch with no trim work around it):

Should I continue the trim color (ivory) through that little gap, or try to split the color between the top wall color (yellow) and the lower wall color (brown), or what?

I'd make the gap the same as A myself... though I can see using the trim color.

In the living room there is this cabinet/niche thing:

I'm thinking the cabinet will be painted the trim color (ivory again) and the wall (A) brown but I'm unsure of what to do with the B and C areas.

Should they all be the wall color?
Should C be the wall color and B be something else?
Should B and C be something other than the wall color?

Thanks for any suggestions!

I'd make B and C the same as A. What will go into the niche will then be a tad more focused on, sort of sculptural. Am not adamant, can see if being different - just that I personally wouldn't differ them.
I'd make D the same as the trim/cabinet.

(Fun problem....)

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

boomerang wrote:

Should I continue the trim color (ivory) through that little gap, or try to split the color between the top wall color (yellow) and the lower wall color (brown), or what?

I'd make the gap the same as A myself... though I can see using the trim color.

In the living room there is this cabinet/niche thing:

I'd make B and C the same as A. What will go into the niche will then be a tad more focused on, sort of sculptural. Am not adamant, can see if being different - just that I personally wouldn't differ them.
I'd make D the same as the trim/cabinet.

(Fun problem....)

definitely no to using trim colour on the not trim area in the first puzzle. I think either main colour would be fine. Sort of depends on the balance of the rest of the room.

100% with OssoB on having the niche painted the same as the upper wall colour, and using the trim colour on D in the second puzzle.

0 Replies

@boomerang,

You could cut the chair rail back about a foot or so, with a fine tooth saw, then have a new piece of chair rail cut with one end, the one that meets the doorway, cut back at a 45 degree angle and the other cut to meet the 90 degree cut you made on the chair rail.

Since it's painted, you don't have to do a perfect cut as you can fill a less than perfect joint with a latex caulk or something like Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty, then prime and paint.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Yeh, but the in the hall, you'd see the chair rail butt. I sort of like the gap, and might not wainscott, personally. I'd put that money into gorgeous bookshelves.
If I had it.

I had built gorgeous shelving in a... closet, the one behind the murphy bed. Chunk of change, for sure. Alas, I had to sell.

2 Replies

@ossobuco,

Feeling like showing some pics -

the murphy bed - sigh:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v722/ossobuco/MurphyBedDoorKintocloset.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v722/ossobuco/MurphyBedDoorKmattress.jpg

This was the tail end of the shelves, fairly extensive behind the bed-swing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v722/ossobuco/MurphyBedDoorKvesinback.jpg

I'm not sure what those photobucket signifiers mean,if you click on the links - not any info by me, and I see it as possibly invasive.

Anyway, the great shelves were in that closet behind the bed.

Not to change the subject, but re where to put money, should you have some, re pros and cons of wainscotting.

2 Replies

That's a brilliant murphy bed, osso. What a great house.

We installed one in our guest room and Mr. B built a cabinet around it. I love it. Murphy beds are the best.

The dining room is WAY too small to install any shelves. You wouldn't be able to turn around in the room. We are going to build book shelves in one section of the living room but that's somewhere down the line.

That's an interesting idea about sawing it down and adding to it. Unfortunately, what we've found in most of the house is that we would have to have blades made to make the millwork. We don't want to spend a lot on the room since one wall will most likely be torn out when we redo the kitchen.

For the niche it sounds like all the same as the wall color is what everyone thinks best so that's what I'm going to do! Thank you!

Usually the shelf just accumulates junk. Jaws, the fish, lives in the niche (that's him in the photo). I do have a nice watercolor that fits in there good. I don't have any sculpture...... can't do breakable around here..... hmmmm..... I'm thinking maybe a jar of cut bamboo or something.

3 Replies

@boomerang,

I meant that whatever is featured in the niche is a kind of sculpture. Not necessarily some art thing, but the effect of featuring.

Throwing in here not apropo the thread - back in the late forties, my father built shelves that were by force not deep, let's guess four or five inches deep.. He built slants, so that magazines or pictures could line up... for a changing display.
Gadzooks I'd like to talk with him now, so long gone.

0 Replies

@boomerang,

My whole riff on bookshelves is about money. Serious shelves, serious money. Wainscotting, serious money. Not so much where they go, but if they do, and where.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

I don't know what you mean, Osso, about the chair rail butt.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

Mr. B sells wood so cost isn't that big a deal for us. We have 25,000 square feet of wood at our disposal.

But even skinny shelves won't work -- we have two built in corner cabinets, long windows along two walls, doors on the other two walls.... shelves won't work at all.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Visible end.

I like the distance from the hall, no nobbyness visble as you approach a clean arch from afar. I figure that was in the mind of whoever did the chair rail. Plus, it's original, I presume.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

Wait, I'm not trying to talk you into shelves in the dining room! Aaaack!!!!!

Just saying, as a person who at one point would have had decisions re money to putting in wainscotting, or money into shelves, I'd have pulls in either direction.

I love/crave both.

0 Replies

@boomerang,

Quote:

That's an interesting idea about sawing it down and adding to it. Unfortunately, what we've found in most of the house is that we would have to have blades made to make the millwork.

It's hard to tell from the small size of the pic, Boomer, but it appears that the chair rail could be a composite of a few pieces of millwork rather than one piece of milled wood.

Could you blow the pic up a bit?

0 Replies

@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

oh the ceiling
I'm envious that you ever had such a wonderful feature
<sigh>

actually, everything in that photo is a wonderful <sigh>

I'm glad you had the "feeling" to show some pix.

~~~

Original features are worth so much. Not so much monetarily, but in the spirit of homes. Lovely.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

You could, as I mentioned cut it back at a 45 or you could do a split 45 degree return, though that latter would leave you with a bit of knobbyness.

I just copied the pic and blew it up myself and though it's impossible to tell if the chair rail is one piece or a built up, it's certainly a simple one to copy with easy table saw rips, especially given that it is painted.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Thanks, ehBeth. Makes me cry to show the pics.

0 Replies

Let's see if this works....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v667/boomerangagain/House/rail2.jpg

Most of the millwork is original to the house and it's been a horror story when things have had to be replaced. The house was built in 1924.

There isn't a hallway. The room on the other side is the living room.

I don't have a photo of this particular doorway but it is a duplicate of this arch that leads off the living room and into a little linen closet area:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v667/boomerangagain/House/archhall.jpg

I see what Osso is saying... since there isn't any trim around the door, any trim that hits the edge of the arch will jut out a bit. However, I don't see why it couldn't be slightly tapered to avoid that look, while still reaching the edge.

2 Replies

@JTT,

JTT. I don't discount your view. Me, I'd leave it. You'd work to modify the chair rail. Countering opinions.

2 Replies

@boomerang,

Much better pic than I got with my blowup, Boomer. That appears to me to be a very easy chair rail to duplicate even to matching the slight imperfections on the eased edges.

Quote:

However, I don't see why it couldn't be slightly tapered to avoid that look, while still reaching the edge.

That's what I was suggesting with a 45 degree back cut. Imagine all those pieces at a 90 degree angle, reaching just to the edge of the curve. Now imagine a line cut from the back, where it meets the wall on a 45 degree angle towards the front of the chair rail.

Then the thin point of the 45 is ever so slightly eased so it isn't such a sharp point. It can then be eased in to the curve with latex caulk and the paint line could end right at the end of the moulding.

I'll see if I can find a net pic.

1 Reply

Yet another paint (but not color) question.

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