Dining Room and Living Room Renewal

Our grandson, Eric, started  painting the walls for us.  Then Tom painted the ledges.  And I finished up the rest of the painting.  Last week the task was completed.

Here is a section of the dining room...new paint, new chandelier, clean draperies, and new switch plate..

The new gold color on the walls is between the two  colors below.  Varying lighting throughout the days makes the color look different as do the shadows that move about with the lighting. It is noticeably more gold than the original color but still fairly light.

Tom made the red oak switch plate.  Our old switch plates were the originals for this 1960s era ranch.  The clear plastic covers were crazed from age,dried out and unsightly.

Tom replaced all of the switchplates in the living room and dining room.  First he cut the blanks.

After mitering the edges, he cut the necessary holes in the sample plate and laid it in place on the switch in the dining room.  That's when he discovered he would have to router out the underside of each plate because the switches were on  raised metal plates.

He made the red rubber-covered pusher to press on the switch plate as he made passes with it over the router bit.  He didn't want to risk cutting his fingers with the router blade.

After he routered out the underside, he used one of the original switch plates to mark the placement of the screw holes and switch holes.

He cut out the switch holes with the scroll saw.

He finished the switchplates with stain, followed by clear satin polyurethane.

Now...is the next improvement replacing some of the old, old furniture?  Maybe.