The Dining Room

 With the box finally built and feeling pretty stable, I cracked on actually trying to finish the first room ready to dress.  

I did a quick review of everything I had and found every room was missing something with the exception of the  Dining Room,so this would have to be the first display box. 

I am not putting you through all the processes of painting and papering, flooring and trimming again as I covered that with the cardboard fiasco.  If you ever do want tons of detailed how-to posts and even my videos just visit Dalton House and use the search box or the links in the left hand column.  Everything you could ever need is there.

Here is the order of work for a room with a chimney breast and fireplace.

1. Paint the ceiling

2. If painting the walls do that next.  This room was being papered so the floor went in next. It needs to be in before the chimney breast so you don't have to cut flooring to fit round it.

3. Make up the chimney breast  including wallpaper- next week will have a how-to for this

4. Drill a hole for the wires from the fire in centre of back wall and at the right height

5. Glue in the chimney breast, using the hole in back wall and hole in the back of fire wall to centre the chimney breast on the wall.  As you can see I put a cocktail stick through both holes to get them aligned properly.  Check the space each side quickly before the glue takes.  This honestly went in spot on first go - they usually do.

6. Paper the walls  I had an unbelievable tortuous route to this wallpaper.  I was determined to find the paper i used before.  I will cut a very, very long story short and say I eventually settled on a fairly look good alike from Les Chinoiseries  and tried not to cry too much at having to pay long distance postage yet again.

7. Add the coving

8.  Add the dado (chair) rail

I use a piece of card to mark the walls for where the dado rail will go.

I even mitre the corner for this teeny trim

9.  Add the skirting

10.  Put in the fire surround and the hearth extension and. of course the fire.

It is now almost ready for the furniture and dressing.

I need to locate the position for the light to go in and make a final decision as to whether I am lighting the mini glass cabinets or not.  

The fire (and possible cupboards') wires will just be fed out of the back of the box and anchored in place with a few inches of masking tape.  The ceiling one will lie across the top of the box and be partially taped down and all will be passed to the centre of the back of the box.  They will then exit the bookcase through a hole drilled in the back of the cupboard.  There will be my usual connector on the centre back of the cupboard waiting to receive the wires.  I want to assemble and tidy up the wires for this in one go when all the boxes are ready for that stage so that the cupboard just gets moved one time for connecting to the electricity.