Dining room to Library progress photos

When we were looking at houses to buy, one of the things we wanted was a formal dining room. We didn't want  it for a dining room- we wanted a library :)

We got what we wanted, and here's what it looked like before we bought it. Apparently I didn't take any other pics after we moved in, which is too bad, since the stacks of books were quite impressive.

Another view of the library from before we bought the house.

I finally got around to painting the library not too long ago. I went with a sand color, which is a bit grayer than the hideous builders beige that STILL (12 years after being built) covers almost all the walls (and the ceilings) in this house. My mission this winter is  to paint every surface in this house :)

These pics show the top half of the room painted, with the bottom still the original color. The new paint highlighted how grungy the old paint has gotten.

The ceiling is now white, the wall sand, and all the trim got a white touch up as well.

I still need to hang the picture on the wall and recover the brown chair (and finish the blue chair) and fix the top of the sewing table since I'm not loving the lacy tablecloth look. I also need to figure out what to do about curtains. I haven't yet found any fabric I love, so the windows are still unadorned.

See that empty wall? That's where the built in shelves will be for all our books. The piano is a recent craigslist acquisition- we got a great deal on it! We also need to move a cupboard into the room to put the musical instruments in so they aren't sitting in one of the chairs.

I will hopefully get the bookshelves built by Christmas, but in the meantime I wanted to show the progress I've made so far.