House Update: The Hallway Renovation

Our big project for the last well, forever, has been the renovation of the
hallway. It’s had to be done in stages due to time and budgets but we’re finally there! And I just love how
different it looks and how much happier I am when I come into the house. I
never thought I would love a hallway, but I do!

So, let me take you back 3 years and show you the hallway as it was when we bought the house – It was yellow and orange woodchip on the walls, and we had mis-matching
carpets up the stairs (4 different mis- matching carpets in all!) and white
lino tiles on the floor downstairs. It was a ‘fixer-upper’ as they would say on
a makeover show!

Obviously it couldn’t stay like this but it was a lot of work to even get it
to a stage where we could start decorating it. It didn’t stop me dreaming of renovating it though!

First off we had the woodchip to strip. We’ve got 3 floors of house and
therefore 3 floors of woodchipped hallway to contend with. Luckily for us Jim’s
mum and her husband came over and did that for us. They did an awesome job – I have
nothing but admiration for them in the time it took to get rid of all that
woodchip.

But, like most rooms in this house, once the wallpaper had gone it unearthed
some very uneven and patchy plastering. Which meant that we had to have the
whole space plastered. Again, 3 floors of plastering required, which meant we
had a little saving up to do to get it done. So for a while we lived with a
bare plaster kind of look – if my hair salon can pull it off, our house can too
– right? Plus, shortly after we had the hall plastered, we got my diagnosis and
it threw us off our decorating game!


But now it meant we could start to make headway with making some changes.
We’d decided that we wanted to add a doorway to the hallway (our neighbours
have one and we liked it) to create a porch area for our shoes and coats, and
to make the house warmer, but mostly to stop the dogs eating the post. Which
they love to do!

I think this might be one of the best things we have done to
the house. It’s created an ‘airlock’ to stop the dogs going quite as crazy at
the door, and it hides the mess of shoes and things from our sight when we’re
in the house.

Now, on to the painting. In my head the best plan
would have been hiring someone to do the painting but, budgets and all that
meant that we had to do all ourselves. I’d had the paint colour for the lower
walls sorted for a long time. I’d fallen in love with a shade called ‘Anchors
Aweigh’. It would have a little nautical theme to it. Of course! I was less
worried about the colour for the rest of the walls, I just knew I wanted a
slight off white and I basically picked the colour because I liked the name –
‘Soft Wool’. The best way to pick a paint colour, right? As the downstairs
walls were going to be two tone, I drew a line at 90cm’s and we painted beneath
the line with Anchor Aweigh and above it, with Soft Wool. The walls upstairs,
on both floors are Soft wool too!

I was lucky in that I’d been sent a couple of Valspar vouchers for their
premium paint, as I couldn’t attend an event they were holding. Whilst we’ve
used Valspar before, I’ve never bought the Premium paint but I can honestly say
it was a godsend. It meant no priming of the plaster and with all these walls
to do, which was something that I was well up for.

I’m going to be straight up here – I was sent vouchers for 5ltrs of paint
and we ended up using 15ltrs of paint, so I’m not being biased in this! I spent
a small fortune on more paint and since doing these walls we’ve bought Premium
for our dining room and plan to buy it for the bedroom we’re about to start on too!

We decided to paint the new porch area fully in ‘Anchors Aweigh’ as we thought
the slightly darker colour would help disguise an mud that the dogs might bring
in, and I think it was a brilliant decision for us, because I just love the
colour, and it really makes the white shoe and coat racks pop.

Once we’d got the walls fully painted,  I got my dad over to put a dado rail up – it
felt like the sort of thing a dad ought to do, and he was good at it! By this
time chemo had started so I made sure he came to do it on a steroid day so I
had the energy to help…..

So, we had walls painted, dado
rails up, art on the walls (because I’m impatient sometimes) – so it was time
to turn our attention to the flooring. 
I’ve wanted a
striped carpet, herringbone floor combo for the longest time – I blame
Pinterest, but but but, after falling in love with both items, I thought it’d
all be too expensive – until my mum reminded me she was buying us the hall
carpet as her (very belated) housewarming gift, which meant it was becoming
more of a reality. We have a fab flooring shop near our house, Mintons,
all our flooring so far has been from them, and I suspect the rest of the house
will be too! We waited a good few months for the guy to come fit our floor, but it was totally worth it!
We’ve got the
stripes running all the way up to the 3rd floor, and I just love the look of
it. But the parquet flooring went down last week and it’s completely
stolen my heart. Now, I have to say, it’s not real parquet, it’s a vinyl tile.
Because, are you mad? We can’t afford real parquet – but it looks like the real
deal thing and that’s the most important thing to me.

We still have a few things to do
to fully complete to space – like painting the porch door (I just can’t decide
what colour to do it) and switching out the paper lamp shades (the fittings I
saw were £150 each and we have 7 fixtures, and I haven’t found anything else I
like yet!) 
It might have taken us a while,
but I’m 100% in love with what we have created. I just love how different the house
feels when you walk into it. I can even overlook the fact that Jim dumps junk
on the console table because I like it so much! 
What do you think? Have we made
the right decision? Would you have kept the yellow woodchip? (if the answer to
this is yes, you might need some help!)

__________________________________

Valspar Premium ‘Soft Wool’ upstairs and on the upper walls
Valspar Premium ‘Anchors Aweigh’ on the lower section of the walls downstais
Camaro Cambridge Parquet  wood flooring. Fitted by Mintons.
Carpets from Mintons 
Hallway Table – 123Furniture
Mirror – Mirror Mad
Hall lamp – Shopped from the house
Artwork from a variety of places – Mountain pics taken by me on holidays in the mountains , gig posters from concerts we’ve been to, fish print from Howkapow, Sheffielfd Map was a gift from Jim.
Console Table with handles from Antropologie
Blue and grey basket – Sainsburys Home
Wine Picnic Basket – Nether Edge Farmers Market
Skateboard – Lives and Levels
Scarf basket – Dunelm
Mountains hoop – Snowbird Artworks
Trones shoe storage boxes – Ikea
Sticks Coat Hooks – Umbra
Home Etc

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