We enlisted the help of Scott Ludwig Sr. to build a chair rail for the living room, to help give the space a bit more character and to try and bring back some of the architectural details of the house (seeing as that it was first built in 1900, yet is currently a mish-mash of all different decades and styles).
The entire room needed about 40 feet worth of chair rail -- you could buy the pieces of wood at Lowe's in 8 foot chunks, and depending on how elaborate the design you picked out, the price varied. The one Scott picked out was about $12 per 8 foot rail, so all in all the entire project cost less than $75, once you add in the white caulking you'll need for the corners and finishing off the trim -- not too bad considering what an improvement it makes!
We also decided to give the living room a more organic, clean and relaxing feeling by picking out a medium green color for the top and crisp white for the bottom to match the trim. We picked out a green eggshell paint called "Northern Glen" -- made by Valspar. The paint went on really well and was surprisingly affordable. We used a white satin paint on the bottom just to reflect a little light in the room and to make the space feel a bit bigger. The "before" and "after" photos are below!
Next up comes Phase III of the living room remodeling process... finding a new coffee table, end table and entertainment unit. That isn't made of plastic-y laminate wood... Trust me, it's harder than you'd think. That's what she said.
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