Tag: hallway

One Room Challenge: Week 4 (Those Stairs, That Hall)

Some things look better (the ceiling and the third floor doors), most things look worse (everything else).

It’s gotta get worse before it gets better! It will all come together in these last two weeks. I’m so grateful to my sponsors (denoted with asterisks) for providing many of the physical goods needed for this makeover. That has allowed us to allocate our budget toward labor and hire out some of the other jobs that were either over our heads (framing and hanging the drywall that is literally over our heads) or too time-intensive to finish by the One Room Challenge deadline (skim coating the back entry and stairway, and custom binding and installing stair runners). Knowing that those jobs are being taken care of, I dedicated myself last week to repairs and properly prepping surfaces before painting, and Brandon removed a bunch of the stairs’ old carpeting.

We’re working on the front and back entryways, four flights of stairs, and two hallways, but I think the biggest impact for us will be in the second floor hall. We are remodeling this home slowly as we’re able to devote time and money to doing it properly, and the hall is probably the most visible record of that work.

The house has been through many changes in its 125 years. The front half of the house was separated from the back when we moved in, and you had to walk through the former kitchen on the second floor to get to the back bedroom. We removed a built-in that was probably added in the 30s (which was a little sad), taking the hall back to its original layout and gaining daylight from a window that was blocked off in the process. A doorway was moved, the walls were fixed, and the former kitchen turned into a nursery. We also ripped up the damaged old flooring and replaced it with new hardwood. The hall was painted, and all was well for about two years. Then we rewired the second and third floors, and we lived with conduit pipes and plenty of holes for the past year. Now we have a ceiling again! The holes have been patched! And in the next couple of weeks? All of that wood trim is going white, the doors are getting painted black, the temporary lights will be replaced, wallpaper will be hung, the window will get a roman shade, and sconces will be installed where there were never sconces before. It’s all pretty exciting.

There isn’t much else that needs to happen in the hall as far as decorating goes. I like gallery walls in other people’s homes, but I want to let the wallpaper stand on its own here. There is a spot tucked away next to the bump-out for the chimney that will get a new dresser* for extra bathroom storage (it’s just across the hall and down a few feet). That little brass lamp* will stay with the dresser, and maybe the tray* too if I don’t use it elsewhere. Then something will go above, either art or a mirror, but I haven’t decided what yet.

Here’s how some of the other details look together!

I’m so eager to get those sconces* installed. The tassels relate to the tassel sconces on the first floor, and the rope detail relates to the new hardware* on the third. The trim needs to be painted first and then the walls papered, and all of that’s waiting on the other work that’s underway.

The new stair runners are waiting on that work, too. We’re going to have them bound on-site and installed by a pro because there are a lot of twists and turns over the course of four very old flights of stairs. That carpet is on sale right now for National Karastan Month, FYI, in case you’re looking to do the same. Karastan is holding a big sweepstakes for an area rug and $1000 off, and there’s also up to a $1000 cash back coupon as part of the sale.

I have a lot of stair prep ahead of me before our installation happens! Black treads, white risers, and you know… not gross.

It looks so bad right now. But we’re getting closer!

Follow along with the One Room Challenge participants!

• Jana Bek • Chris Loves Julia • Shannon Claire • Coco.Kelley • The Curated House • Driven by Décor • The English Room • From the Right Bank • Sherry Hart • Hi Sugarplum • House of Jade • Hunted Interior • The Makerista • Making it Lovely • Marcus Design • Pencil & Paper Co. • Megan Pflug • Place of My Taste • Suburban B’s • Waiting on Martha • Media Partner House Beautiful • TM by CIH

My One Room Challenge Posts

Follow along from the beginning!
• Week 1: The Before Shots • Week 2: The Design Plan • Week 3: Work Very Much in Progress • Week 4: Those Stairs, That Hall • Week 5: When it Rains, it Pours • Weed 6: Final Reveal!

* Asterisks indicate that an item was provided by a sponsor.

October 26, 2016
One Room Challenge: Week 1 (the Before Shots)
I’m thrilled to be taking part in the One Room Challenge again! A huge thank you to Linda at Calling it Home for organizing the event and inviting me back. I worked on our bedroom and den last time; both are right next to each other on the second floor. Going to sleep and waking up in a finished space is especially nice, but what’s that just beyond the door? Oh, right. A hallway that still looks like this after we rewired the second and third floors of the Victorian.

So as I was thinking of which space I wanted to do this time, everything just felt wrong when we still had glaring issues along that hallway. Conduit along the ceiling! Holes everywhere! Bare bulbs and missing light fixtures!

But is that really enough of a ‘room’ for the One Room Challenge? After working simultaneously on two spaces for the ORC last time, just doing a hallway seemed way too easy. Hmmm… What if I do the hallway and down the back stairs, out to the back door. We’ve never touched that space, and it could really use some help.

That’s more like it. Now we’ve got some work to do. Ah, but what about the front entry? It doesn’t need all that much, but wouldn’t it be nice if the front and back door hardware matched? Plus I’d been thinking of changing the paint color again and I hadn’t gotten around to swapping out the light fixtures yet. Let’s add that to the mix.

OK, the front entry, up the stairs, down the hallway, and down again to the back door. Wait, maybe I should update the third floor hallway too? It isn’t as awful as the second floor hall, but it is in need of some repair. I was already planning on changing the sconces up there and the doors could use a bit of love at the same time.

The front entry, up the stairs, down the hallway on the second and third floors, down the stairs, and out the back door. Have I made enough work for myself yet? Yes? Good. All of the connecting spaces together at once. I’ve been planning the design, but work hasn’t started and will be progressing in real time. Six weeks! Six weeks to do all of this…
- Repair Walls and Ceilings
  back entry and stairway: fix cracked plaster, patch holes
  2nd floor hallway: patch holes, new drywall framed, hung, and taped
  3rd floor hallway: patch holes
- Stairs
  front stairway, second to third floor: remove old carpeting, repair treads (as needed), install new runners after painting
  back stairway, basement to third floor: remove old carpeting, repair treads (as needed), install new runners after painting
- Prime and Paint
  front entry and stairway: walls, ceiling, stairs (second to third floor)
  back entry and stairway: walls, ceiling, door, trim, stairs (basement to third floor), railing and spindles
  2nd floor hallway: ceiling, doors, trim
  3rd floor hallway: walls, ceiling, doors, trim
- Hang Wallpaper
  2nd floor hallway: walls
- New Door Hardware
  front entry: door knob and deadbolt
  back entry: door knob and deadbolt
  3rd floor hallway: door knobs, hinges
- Window Treatments
  throughout: roman shades
- Install Lighting Fixtures
  front entry: two pendants
  back entry and stairway: pendant and two sconces
  2nd floor hallway: four flush mount fixtures, three sconces
  3rd floor hallway: flush mount fixture, sconce
You know. Plus the pretty stuff. Lamps, art, furniture, all that.

I’m going to get more into the design details next Wednesday, but for now, I’ll leave you with my color inspiration. The red and pink sandstone of Hawa Mahal in Jaipur, India.

Images: 1 • 2 • 3

It’s going to be so good! Every single room in this big old Victorian feeds off of these connecting spaces. Getting these right is going to make a huge difference.

Follow along with the One Room Challenge participants!

• Jana Bek • Chris Loves Julia • Shannon Claire • Coco.Kelley • The Curated House • Driven by Décor • The English Room • From the Right Bank • Sherry Hart • Hi Sugarplum • House of Jade • Hunted Interior • The Makerista • Making it Lovely • Marcus Design • Pencil & Paper Co. • Megan Pflug • Place of My Taste • Suburban B’s • Waiting on Martha • Media Partner House Beautiful • TM by CIH

My One Room Challenge Posts

Follow along from the beginning!
• Week 1: The Before Shots • Week 2: The Design Plan • Week 3: Work Very Much in Progress • Week 4: Those Stairs, That Hall • Week 5: When it Rains, it Pours • Weed 6: Final Reveal!

p.s. If this sounds like the kind of thing that would motivate you to work on a room of your own, join in as a guest!
October 5, 2016
Status: Closet, Hallway, and Electrical Work

The sheet mirror above the sink in the closet is gone. I was so nervous for it to come down!

I watched a few ‘how to’ videos before getting started. Everyone recommended taping the mirror so that if it broke, the shards wouldn’t fall everywhere, which turned out to be a very good idea. The mirror broke. The molding along the edges came off easily enough, but the wall-to-wall mirror was really wedged in there at the bottom with no wiggle room. It cracked in one big diagonal line, but safely, I guess? No injuries to report.

The wall behind had some glue to scrape off, some old patching that came right off, and the corner was pretty much missing. It’s easy enough to patch a hole in the wall — I’ve done it a million times. Corners? How much worse can they be? I mean, sure, I’ve heard that they’re tricky, but again, a few ‘how to’ videos and I was all set to try. Yeah, they’re tricky. I’m sure it will turn out fine, but here’s where I’m at right now.

There’s a lot of sanding in my future, and at least one more coat of mud. Which means that our bedroom will continue to function as our closet, since I can’t put anything back in there until the repairs are finished unless I would like a fine coating of white dust all over our clothes.

Meanwhile, the floor in the hallway currently looks like this.

Fiiinnnaaallly getting the soft spot in the floor out there fixed. Remember the 75-year-old beadboard subfloor patch job in the closet? Also present in the hall. Plus a nice section with absolutely no subfloor and a missing floor joist. Nice!

Annnnd the electricians haven’t started yet. (They’re finishing up a big job that has taken longer than they were expecting.) My sconces in the library are up though, and I put up a new pair of matching pendants! I was antsy and couldn’t wait, so I just did it myself. Sharing photos in a post next week, hurrah! (Unless you caught them on Snapchat already. Are you following ‘makingitlovely’ over there? It’s kind of fun, but I’m still getting the hang of it. I went to a couple of events yesterday that would have made for good snaps, but silly me, I was all “in the moment” and forgetting to do the whole social media thing. Pics or it didn’t happen.)

December 10, 2015
Art from Minted (With a Giveaway!)

Minted is a marketplace that hosts regular competitions to source all their art from a global community of independent artists. They recently invited me to select a few of my favorite prints, and they’re hosting a $500 giveaway so that one of my readers can do the same! Details and instructions for entering are at the end of this post.

I chose three pieces, intending to group and hang them together above a vintage wooden bench in the hallway. August spotted and loved the Happy Faces print by Kim Johnson though, and he asked if I would hang it in his room.

Maybe all those happy faces will shine down on him and put him in a good mood when he’s having a cranky four-year-old kind of day. (A parent can hope, right?)

:)

The happy faces print was the largest, and it was to be the anchor in my group of three. With that one having been relocated, I set about finding new spots for the other two prints.

We did a ton of work to the hallway on the second floor, reconfiguring the layout, knocking down walls and putting up new ones, smoothing it all out, laying new flooring, and upgrading the lighting. But we haven’t stripped the paint on the window and doorframe yet, and while it would be great to skim coat the walls and remove or replace the carpet in the stairway, it isn’t a priority. Hanging something pretty (Peony Bottle, by Betty Hatchett) draws my eye to the art and lets me kind of ignore the rest.

Remember the armoire with the crazy striped surprise inside that we painted? Here it is in place, a little further down the other side of the hallway. A low-maintenance plant, a thrifted lamp, and a radio have been hanging out on top, and I added my third Minted print over it — Mid-Century Moments, by That Girl Studio.

Giveaway

I narrowed my list of dozens of favorites on Minted down to the three you see above, but it wasn’t easy to choose. They have tons of cute prints! Luckily for you, Minted is giving away a $500 credit so that one reader can choose a bunch of their favorites too. You have until midnight, June 28 to enter. Visit Minted to enter and for the complete rules. Good luck!

Thank you, Minted, for sponsoring this post.

While this was a sponsored opportunity from Minted, all content and opinions expressed here are my own.

* Congratulations to the winner, Stephanie!

June 23, 2015
New Lights, and New Favorites
This post is sponsored by Schoolhouse Electric.

There are three existing lights in the hallway: the one that you can see below, hanging down (which is cute and has a round glass shade), and two others that don’t match. Now that the hall construction is complete and the walls have been painted, I want all three lights to be identical for continuity. I was looking for flush mount fixtures in brass to match the metal finishes throughout the Victorian, in a small scale, and in a classic style. I wanted something that looked good, but nothing that was too much of an in-your-face statement piece (hallways are utilitarian spaces — they don’t exactly need chandeliers!). I’ve been a fan of Schoolhouse Electric’s fixtures for ages, so when they offered to provide lighting, I chose three Newberry 4″ pendant fixtures in brass and these white glass shades. They arrived a couple of days ago, and they’re going to look fantastic.

(Oof, that belly. Almost done!)

We’re rewiring the house soon and getting rid of the old BX, along with any hidden knob and tube that’s still active (oh, the joys of old houses!), so we’ll have new fixtures installed then. We’re also having all of the switches on the first and second floors changed out for new push-button switches at the same time. There are a few original ones left in the house, and I love them! I’m so excited that all of the switches are going to match.

OK, and I have to share the new collection that Schoolhouse Electric just released this week. We’d been emailing back and forth about the lights, and they gave me a sneak peek at everything… and whoa. Way more exciting than finishing up a hallway! First of all, this bedroom is perfection. You know I love a good Jenny Lind bed, and a good floral.

My favorites from the new line are below. I want to put a room together around all of these pieces! Can’t you just see it? So awesome when a collection leaves you feeling inspired.
September 18, 2014
Choosing Our Hardwood Flooring for the Hallway

This post is sponsored by Floor & Decor.

When Brandon and I bought our Victorian, we knew that the flooring in the hallway on the second floor would need to be addressed eventually. There are a couple of soft spots with noticeable give, and our home inspector estimated that we could probably go five-or-so years before replacement/repair would be necessary. The floor hasn’t gotten any worse in our year of living here, but since we were opening up the back of the hallway and putting in new flooring, we thought we may as well choose new flooring for the entire hall now.

Our contractor’s schedule is usually booked up pretty far in advance, but he was able to move our remodeling project up so that construction on the hallway and nursery could be completed before baby number three arrives. Putting in the new flooring throughout the entire hall isn’t as pressing as the rest of the project was though, so with the major work already done, we’ll have our guy back out in a few months to finish up once his schedule has been cleared. I don’t expect our flooring choice to be discontinued anytime in the immediate future, but just in case, we’re going to buy and store the rest of the wood needed to complete the hallway so that everything will match. There is a significant difference in the thickness between the new and old wood, but we’ll keep a runner over that transition for now so that nobody trips or stubs their toe.

Selecting the new flooring material was up to us, so that we could choose the type, style, and finish ourselves. I asked if he had a recommendation for where to look, and he said that he had been referring his customers to a relative newcomer, Floor & Decor. I wasn’t familiar with them before that day, but coincidentally, I had received an email that same morning about their fourth Chicagoland store set to open in Skokie on the 12th. They were interested in working together, and after visiting (and liking) the Lombard location per my contractor’s recommendation, the timing worked out perfectly to partner on our hallway project.

Brandon and I chose a prefinished wood floor for ease of installation, and we also picked up an underlayment to muffle sound. I was a little worried that the micro-beveled edges on the wood planks would bother me since I like the smooth mirror-like finish of flooring that has been finished in place, but the floor looks great. I didn’t want a jarring change down the hallway, so I chose a color and wood that was similar to what we already had throughout the house: Gunstock Oak. I also went with the skinny 2-1/4″ planks to match the original floor as closely as possible. The hardest choice to make was whether we wanted engineered or solid hardwood. Engineered wood floors cost less, and there are some great quality options out there, but the longevity of solid wood won us over. Hallways are high-traffic areas and solid wood can be refinished multiple times over the years if need be, and it felt like a more appropriate choice for the house.

The old flooring still needs to be replaced in the original part of the hallway of course, but it looks fantastic already. So exciting to see the hall being returned to its original state and configuration!

Floor & Decor carries ceramic, stone, tile, wood, and laminate flooring, so be sure to check them out if you’re in the market. They offer free design consultations, and their showrooms are large enough that they often have the materials and tools you need in-stock and ready to take home. Floor & Decor already operates 44 stores across the country, and their new Skokie store will have events for the whole family this Friday and Saturday during their grand opening!

September 9, 2014