Dining Room Remodel

As many of you know, I have been in somewhat of a creative slump lately wth my glass work. Since I am very "project" oriented and like to do a variety of things, that slump has extended to other areas as well. Then we had a minor catastrophe here at home and everthing changed. The ice maker on our refrigerator sprang a leak behind the wall and damaged a portion of the floor and the dry wall in one area of the dining room had to be replaced. Since I had already knocked a hole in the wall to let it start drying out I decided to experiment with painting it. I tried stripes and that didn't work. I considered stenciling and decided against that. Then I got the bright idea to texture the bottom half of the short walls and paint them a different color from the top. I theorized that the texturing would also save a day or two of the drywaller's time to come back and apply another coat of "mud" and that would be more economical for us. After our repairman had applied one initial heavy coat and it had dried for 24 hours, I applied joint compound in random swirls. I let that dry for another day before I painted it. It looked nice but it still needed something else. I went to Lowe's and found a nice unfinished wood chair rail strip with a design I liked. I stained it a medium oak stain and we put it on the wall. I love the end result and guess what? I now have glass in the kiln, have painted a chair, made a new chair cushion and hopefully am on my way out of my creative slump.