Painting Pictures

Kendra and I have been painting. And painting. And painting. For a long time now. But we have made progress; only two rooms remain to be painted. We've done the before/after thing with the playroom, office, and the living room, but I don't think we've shown off the parlor or dining room yet.

Here is a before picture of the parlor:

Note the white walls, and the dated ceiling fan. We like the wainscoting, and will keep it, but we couldn't live with the white walls. The parlor adjoins the living room through a set of pocket doors and--most of the time--each room is visible from the other. We had used a light green color to paint the living room, so we wanted something fairly neutral for the parlor. We settled on "Natural Tan" from Sherwin Williams:
The Natural Tan adds just a touch of color without clashing with the green in the living room, which is the effect that we were going for. As you can see, we also swapped out the ceiling fan to match the one in the living room.

We've covered the dining room before (in all its mirrored glory), so I won't re-post a "before" picture. The walls were a very rich red. We liked the red, but with the stain on the trim it just made it too dark in there. We lightened up the room with Inviting Ivory from Sherwin Williams (who names these colors?!). In addition to the nice contrast with the wood, it makes the room seem bigger. Here is an after picture of the dining room (the notorious mirrors are on the wall just left of the camera; the living room is to the right):

A gratuitous picture of Max, due to the
demands of "anonymous" commentators
(we know who you are, Willis).

I must say that painting is the least sexy of the home improvement jobs so far, and I certainly will not be sad when the last coat is rolled on the walls.