Makeover Magic: The Back Hallway, Before and After

It's past time I showed you how it turned out. We started taking down the popcorn ceiling on July 26th. I believe I finished the last thing on September 29th. (The hardware for the dresser was back ordered and arrived some time in October.)

It took us two months to totally transform the hallway with a little paint, some hardware and a little furniture hacking.

There isn't much to this awkward, little space. It's the area with the blue magnifying glass.

There are four doors, three openings, and no windows. As one of those doors leads to the bathroom (and our single solitary tub/shower), all of us use it --a lot.

Taken at the kitchen doorway looking into my son's room.

I've cobbled these photos together from a few different time periods. I liked to change up the runner on the dresser.

Standing in the bathroom. Hey there.

ew, looking at all that yellow-green now makes me shudder.

And finally, the reverse angle--standing in the bedroom doorway looking back towards the kitchen.

I made up my list of what I wanted to do back during the January Cure. I had thought we would tackle this area during the Spring One Room Challenge, but at the very last minute, I switched my focus to the dining room. (I know, I need to show you what we did in there, too. Soon.) This funny little space had to wait 'til summer.

As we accomplished the various items on the list--I linked to them.

• Remove popcorn ceiling Day 8&9
• Paint walls Be Gone, Yellow-Green!
• Paint doors (4) Inspired by Dressers All Dressed Up.
• Paint trim Inspired by Dressers All Dressed Up
• Clean out dresser
• Paint the dresser--or just the top?

Then, just as I was finishing things up --October happened, with the Fall One Room Challenge (my Mom's dressing room) and the 31 Day Decluttering series. (I have no explanation for November.)

But hey. We're done. All this week, I've been waiting on the sun: but I've decided not to wait any longer.

Ready?

The doors are simply amazing. We took all of them down and put them outside where sanded them as far as we could. They were primed and then painted in Hague Blue (by Farrow and Ball) mixed into a Sherwin Williams semi-gloss. I would have to drive four hours each way to get genuine F&B paint. I just might, one of these days. The walls are painted Martha Stewart: Glass of Milk and the trim is Benjamin Moore: Cloud White. And yes--those baseboards are painted! No more knotty pine.

Chris bought a second hand door to replace our old bathroom door. While he rebuilt it to fit,  I washed all the hinge pins, the doorknobs and their backplates with bar keepers friend.

It's all original to the house and the varnish had worn off for the most part.


Remember when I wasn't sure what to do with the dresser? (I did exactly what Gina suggested.)

The top was scratched and someone had started to drill holes into the top drawer to install hardware.

The old top came off fairly easily.

You can see where some of the dowels are, still. Chris just built the top and matched the holes. The wood top will lift off the dresser if we try to move it that way.

Here's a proper look:

Hey there.

So handsome.

We took the lessons we learned from making the table top in the dining room (namely, plane both long edges of your planks. The saw mill rounds them; for joining them, you want the edges absolutely square.) Chris got a wonderfully tight fit.

They're fence boards (!) stained with dark walnut by Minwax and finished with three coats of matte varnish by Varathane. Beautiful.

sorry for the blotchy lens!

The stairs are finally finished-- but I need to do just a couple more things before I'll consider the stairwell ready for its reveal.

The dresser has so much more weight and stature now. Those pulls remind me of a military coat. I just love it to pieces. Almost more than my navy blue doors.

And there we have it.
So good.

Linking to a few parties--just to get it out there!

Home Stories A to Z.

Dwellings: The Heart of Your Home

LadyBug Blessings.

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