Know thyself. Know thyself. Know thySELF!

 A Hall Upgrade

And so our tale of a house reborn continues.  The next “room” I targeted was the hall.  It’s not really a room, or a hall… but it’s kind of both. Here it is marked on the "Master plan"

It’s the space between the foyer, the east bedroom, the bathroom, and the dining room. It’s its own space.  This used to be the actual center of the house before the kitchen and west bedroom were added. So  let’s look at the before:

This whole section of the house was covered with paneling and painted, YEARS ago.  I’m not sure why, but there are some places the drywall is damaged, so maybe this was just cheaper than repair. When they put the paneling in, they removed the door casings, and finished it with polystyrene edging. The floor is painted and patched where the old floor heater was… the ceiling is gross popcorn. Popcorn applied OVERTOP of an old “whole house fan”.  

A Whole house fan was a popular way to keep houses cool in the days before central air was common.  It would pull the hot air out of the house and push it out through the attic vents.  With windows open, this creates a nice cool air flow in the house. This one was disconnected when I bought the house. The switch and wiring were still around, but it didn’t work.  The roof was replaced when the house was expanded, so the old gable vents are gone. Maybe that’s why it was disconnected. I’m not sure it’s possible to remove it without tearing out the whole ceiling.  So the ceiling is ugly, the walls are blah, the floors are ugly, and the 4 doors are not properly trimmed. 

I’m going for a quaint hall effect similar to an old hotel or country house… I cut down the paneling and kept it as a wainscoting effect.  

Now the fun bits:  When I removed the paneling, I discovered an old telephone shelf niche! This would have been a great place for the phone back in the day, as the literal center of the house. (also explains some small gauge wires I found in this wall.  I put a new shelf on it where the old one was broken off (to make the paneling fit), and trimmed it out with left over edge molding from the paneling

The upper walls got treated with a textured paintable paper (love the pattern, but this stuff is not durable before being painted).   The wall paint (upper) is the same paint color as the old walls, a color called Polished Pearl by Behr, which I chose when I bought the house. The wainscoting is painted with a c.olor I had left over from the bathroom paint job (which I didn’t blog about) called Dragonfly, (also behr).  I LOVE this color, it’s kinda blue, kinda green, kinda grey…. Modern and old school.  

On the ceiling, I removed the old louvered vent for the fan, and patched it with drywall. Scraped the popcorn, and put up another textured paper and molding (which is really a plastic baseboard printed like stained wood… cheap, easy, and attractive)  The ceiling will be painted eventually, but it’s continuous with the dining room ceiling, so I’ll paint it when it’s done. Using the old switch and wiring from the fan, I added a cute little schoolhouse style light fixture.

The floor, discussed in the previous post, is now an oak colored vinyl plank flooring.  This is also continuous with the dining room, so it’s going to be a continuing project.

And the silly bits:  in the corner is an 18.5” door hiding the HVAC system.  With a half a clock, a blank electrical box cover, and some printed vinyl…. I put in an elevator.  Tres chic…. But it’s always stuck on the 3^rd floor.  I must remember to call the super.