The Hallway! She is Being Painted!

Right. So, we hired painters to come in and do it for us.

I actually really like painting — I find it relaxing! But this pregnancy has been somewhat difficult and with the baby due later this month, I just could not do it myself. Brandon and our brother-in-law, Enrique, primed just the new portion of the hall on Labor Day, but we hadn’t been able to get any further with the project. It was becoming pretty clear that we weren’t going to be able to finish the job in a timely manner.

The painters started on Friday, and they’re finishing up today, but it already looks pretty great after just the first coat. Behold our nearly smooth and straight walls and ceiling! (Yes, there’s some wonkiness. The house is old, yo.)

The hallway, front stairway, and entryway are all getting the same color on the walls as our bedroom (Sherwin-Williams’ Comfort Gray), and a shade lighter on the ceiling (Sea Salt). It’s a pretty gray/blue/green color that plays really nicely with the wood throughout the house.

Still to do:

• One more coat of paint each on the ceiling and on the walls.

• Strip the window and door frames. We are considering just painting them brown as a short-term solution and then stripping them sometime down the line with there isn’t a pregnant lady (or a newborn) to worry about in the house.

• Finish the floors. (I’m going to go into more details on the flooring in a post tomorrow — what we chose and why.)

• Replace the three hallway lights with new fixtures so that they all match.

• Replace the light switches with push-button switches. (I am inordinately excited about this change.)

• Put the doorbell cover and outlet coverplates back on.

• Maybe find new runners?

• Find a storage piece to go in the hall (there’s a spot for something tall and shallow just to the left of where I was standing to take the hallway photo).

• Hang some art? This isn’t exactly pressing. I’m kind of happy to admire our hallway as it is for a while. The window is visible down the hall again for the first time in decades! Natural light FTW!

• Skim coat the walls and ceiling along the back stairway. Eventually, I’d love to have nice, smooth walls there painted to match, but that’s a project for another time. We’ve left the textured walls along the back stairs white for now.