Update: The Foyer

I've been working on the front hallway since late January. This is what things looked like then:



It all started with an impulsive decision to take down the popcorn ceiling.

That was fun. (Um, not.)

After quite a bit of hemming and hawing, I decided to paint the walls.

But blue was not the answer.


I decided I wanted to try grey. Grey is the up and coming colour for the decade, after all. I settled on Benjamin Moore's Edgecomb Grey. I absolutely love it.

This was taken before I painted the trim and ceiling. It really came alive then.

Memories of scraping that ceiling stayed with me a long time, however, and I took my time getting to painting it. I filled the cracks. A few days later, I sanded them.

Fill, then sand.

Then I washed the ceiling.

I waited.

At long last I decided it just had to be done, so I asked my husband to tape it for me one evening. He did--and I promptly got very, very sick. The green tape stayed up for about two more weeks.

Meanwhile, I had decided that I wanted to change the hallway light fixture. Ideally, I wanted something trendy, like this:

from Home Depot.

At the time I was looking, the bills from Christmas were piled high and hubby was working overtime to pay them off. The $90.00 price tag just seemed like too much of a splurge. Two little "candelabra" type fixtures didn't seem like enough light--and I really wasn't sure a pendant fixture would work in the space, anyway.

I saw this while searching, though, and I had a brainstorm courtesy of a blogger in love with oil rubbed bronze spray paint. I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly who it was.

From Home Depot. About $75.00

For about $8 I could simply spray paint the ugly brass fixture I already had. And so I did.

We went from this:

you can still see the bit of "popcorn" dangling from the ceiling, here.

to this:

I can't believe I didn't get a picture of all that glass taped off. It was quite the job. I used an eXacto knife to get it all taped just so.

Last week, I decided to do a hybrid Spring Clean and Cure. In preparation for it, I knew I wanted the hallway finished.

So, two coats of Benjamin Moore's Ceiling paint in Cloud White went up last week, and I finished up the light fixture and reinstalled it today.

This is the After--at least as far as painting goes. The trim is BM Cloud White in Semi-gloss. Please ignore the stuff on the stairs!

I'm not sure if I am moving the yellow cabinet back in or not. Hubby and I have been remarking on how much we like having the space.

Linking to Met Monday at Between Naps on the Porch