The Longest Short Space

When you come in the front door and go straight into the house you find a seven foot hallway

That will bring you past our downstairs powder room, past two closets and into our kitchen eating area.

When we bought the house it had 80’s sorta glass-cloth like wallpaper. Which was sorta neutral (overall it looked tan, but it had pinky beige and baby blues in it) but was clearly coated in dust and grime.

There’s our vintage door bell. And our louvered doors.  

Side note:  Our realtor immediately said that door bell HAS to go.

I was indifferent.

Then I started looking them up online and saw that these old bells can go for a lot of money on eBay. Which made me want to keep mine for nostalgia.

But it turns out that with kids, those long bells don’t fare too well.

So we’ll be updating.

And I may to see what a slightly bead up model (that’s missing a bell -- we got it that way) might fetch on eBay.

Here is inside our coat closet.

(That carpet smelled at least 1,000 years old!!)

So, you’d think the fact that this hall way is only 7 feet long would make it an easy space to update.

NOT SO.

I’ve now begun to quote longer times for smaller spaces because I am learning the smaller the more intricate.

I guessed this would take me a while.

But I’ve been giving it major work for two weeks now! 

I didn’t think it would take THAT long!

But here it is, looking new and fresh.

This may possibly be the most anti climatic post for readers looking at our home.

But for me this hallway will always be precious, because I have INVESTED into it!

A while ago I look the wallpaper down. Eventually I got down to washing the old, left over from the sixties wallpaper, paste off. 

The smidgen of original wallpaper we found under the old thermostat.

Getting the past off took so much washing I literally wore through the rag I was using.

I might have wore through my hand too.

At some point I did the deep cleaning of the floor grout too.

After that I did a lot of dry wall mudding and some sanding.

Then

painting the doors in the space.

Using semi-gloss means lots of coats. I did at least 2 sometimes 3 coats on the doors, front and back.

You’ll notice we switched the doors. We did that right off the bat. 

All but the coat closet doors. 

I liked how they had french doors before, I think it worked well for the space. A full size door opens alright in there. But since there are doors to each side, it is nice to have a smaller opening width there. And I thought it kinda have the space a visual break from too much repetition.

I found these doors as a set of bifold doors at ReStore Thrift store.

(My friend couldn’t believe it -- she said I always find what I’m looking for at thrift stores. I say I’m just always looking for everything, I’m bound to find something.)

Blake took them apart and hung them like french doors. They actually fit the space great because our floors are up higher than normal, so even though bifold doors are shorter than normal (to fit their tracks)  it was just right for this spot. (We had to trim down our other doors.)

As you can see, I’ve not gotten to the entry part of this spot.

I thought long and hard about the door knobs in here. The old ones looked strangely huge. When I laid eyes on these babies at Hobby Lobby I knew. They are actually drawer pulls. But they look like just the right size knobs for these doors. And I like that they appear to be old. They come in a brownish, almost oil rubbed bronze color, but more like rust. So to make sure they really match our other doors, I spray painted them ORB.

They are the perfect size!

I also knew I wanted a mirror on the inside of this door, as a “one last look” mirror.

I actually have a lot of full length mirrors already. But none of them fit just right. I had two that sort of would, but they had frames on them. And my ever thinking too hard self was worried the frames would look dated. So I went and bought a frameless beveled edge mirror and we glued it to the door.

Glue because there wasn’t enough room for clips on the side. And also because…kids.

The fact that the glue pretty much means forever is the main reason I didn’t want to worry if the frame would look dated or not work with future colors.

I also hung it way higher than I’d need it because I wanted to make sure non-short people could use it too. And I tested it -- Jasmine can see herself as well. Win-win-win.

And the other closet across the way is our under-the-stairs closet.

Which can be used for anything. Most likely it has been just extra storage.

But my goal is to turn it into a Pantry. Since our kitchen doesn’t have one, nor is there a real space to put one in the future.

My first step is putting this adjustable rack on the door.

Having that put on there has totally made my week.

I love it! And I feel just a smidgen closer to moved in for real.

As for the rest of the closet, it is basically our hole of paint.

I got crafty and nailed up a wall planter that came with our sunroom, to hold our chips for now. :)

FANCY, no? ;)

It’s an akward space to house shelving, so I’ve been pinning away again. Racking my brain to make it the best it can possibly ever be, based on what it is!

But it will probably be a while till we get there. 

Anyway.

So this space is almost done. I actually only have one coat of paint on.

(Painting around all these tight edges of the door frames is time consuming too.)

I need at least one more coat, maybe two because of all the dry wall mudding (that absorbs paint differently so it shows through.)

So like the title says, after all this time, this is the longest short space. 

But it sure feels good to walk through now. 

BEFORE

AFTER

Hope you enjoyed -- sorry it’s not more thrilling.

Stick around. Good stuff to come.
It’s just slow moving around here.