After seeing our new bathroom, the need for some updates in our hallway became glaringly obvious. So, we’re going to be tackling a hallway update project. Yet should we consider our hallway update project part of one big project or a follow-on project?
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Our hallway
This is our hallway, which connects our living room and entry with our bedrooms and bathroom. It is also where our turtle, Bubble, resides.
There are 4 doors that exit from the hallway – two bedrooms, our (recently renovated) bathroom and the stairs to the cellar with the laundry, tool cellar, heater, man cave and preserves cellar. Yes, we have a room just for the preserves, jams and wine, as well as storage for things like Christmas ornaments.
At some stage, we will paint or swap out the doors and frames in the hallway, but we don’t have the budget to do it at the moment.
The changes we want to make
Paint?
I would love to paint the walls something dark and moody, like a great navy. However, we recently received notice that there an apartment block (of 7 units) will be built on the block next to ours. If our understanding is correct, the new construction will block off nearly all of our natural (morning) light from the bathroom side of the house. I am therefore reluctant to go dark before we know how the light in the hallway will be affected.
Flooring
The tiles have to stay. We have them throughout our living room and kitchen, as well as the hallway and entry. Unfortunately, we don’t have the funds for new flooring at the moment – it is more of a very long-term wish because of the large area that would need to be done. There used to be a colourful rag runner on the floor, but we removed it when we were getting ready for our bathroom renovation. It was too busy and the unevenness meant our daughter often tripped. I think a simpler runner would be better, possibly in a navy blue.
Storage
As we were losing storage in our bathroom, we needed more storage in the hallway. The new white IKEA cabinet (Billy with Oxberg with Eneryda knobs) addresses this issue. Before, there was a shorter IKEA Billy bookshelf in its place, with pictures above it and food and oddities for our turtle on top.
Visually, the new cabinet calms things down significantly, even if I still have to style the shelves.
I have also seen a glass treatment that I would like to try (see The painted hive – thanks Kristine), but we still have to decide on what will be written on the doors. Perhaps “Bubble’s Pantry: Open 24/7” in reference to the fact that the turtle food is kept inside.
Wall art
Apart from a mini wall in Miss M’s bedroom, the hallway houses the only gallery wall in our house. While I love the photos, I need to do something to quieten the space and already have a plan.
On the opposite wall is an ugly grey box, which is our electrical box. Obviously, I can’t move it and it has to remain accessible. However, I am planning to do something to disguise it.
The shoe rack
The shoe rack will stay. We got it shortly after moving in from Manufactum, a German shop that still sells “good things” (seriously, that is there motto). It seems our shoe rack has been discontinued.
Perhaps surprisingly, Peter has more shoes than me and we need the shoe rack for storage. If you can imagine, before the work on our bathroom, the rack was overflowing and we had about 10 random pairs “hiding” on the ground behind it, too. The rack had to be moved before our team could work on the bathroom, and took the opportunity to purge. We parted with about 15 pairs of shoes that we didn’t wear anymore and will be doing our best in the future to keep the shoes to a minimum.
Our hallway update project: our goals
We have two big aims for our hallway update project: to make the space more soothing and to better connect it to the entry. That is why I plan to attack our entry at the same time.
So really, this is our hallway and entry project.
The floors
One element that will help unify the two spaces is the runners. The entry has a smaller runner, which I like but it does not really go with anything else in the house. We needed a rug quickly to go in the space and found it on sale. While it went with the artwork in the area, it, unfortunately, looked bluer online than it is in real life. So both the rug and the artwork will, therefore, be going.
There is also a mat on the floor in between the two runners to prevent my mother-in-law from tripping when she wants to go downstairs (the floor changes height). The mat here will also be changed to suit if I can’t just get rid of it safely.
Our little baby is a big girl
The other big change to this room is that the pram/stroller is no longer needed and will be finding a new home. Suddenly, this room will have some breathing room! We have considered a bench, a console table, a trunk… but have not decided what will end up here.
The small trunk that is there now does not have to stay. My husband would prefer that the small table stays, as it is a family antique. In addition, if we move the small table, we will need to find a solution for our modem/phone/other electronics. I am excited to see what we decide to do here.
Storage
The two storage baskets will also have to be changed. One is falling apart and the other contains various covers, nets, an umbrella, blankets, etc. that belong with the pusher. Depending on what we decide to do with the wall space that we gain by finding a new home for the pusher, we may need some baskets there too. In other areas of our home we use metal baskets, but these would scratch the wood on the antique writing cabinet. Our aesthetic tends towards industrial, so that rattan baskets will probably not work for us either.
Possibly, we will also need some hooks.
Textured wallpaper: why, oh why?
Can I just have a little rant about textured wallpaper and textured walls? It is something that I had never really encountered before coming to Germany. Due to the age of our house, It covers almost all of our walls and ceilings. Yes, the ceilings, too. Unfortunately, it is one of those annoying things that costs a lot to change. While I would love to get rid of it, it will not be happening this time around.
A feature wall?
I wanted to add a feature wall in the entry and was thinking about playing with some peel and stick wallpaper. Does textured wallpaper go with normal wallpaper? I can see it being a challenge to eliminate bubbles in the patterned paper with the textured paper underneath. And the texture will probably still be visible.
Philip from Wall2Stick has been great, and thinks they may be able to change the paper they use to make it workable. Still, because of the depth of the texture, the bumps will be visible. I don’t know whether we will go that route or try paint or something else. We are considering our options.
Our entry and hallway update project: the plan
So the main plan for our entry and hallway update project is to unify the hallway and entry areas and bring more calm to the space.
- Change and update the door handles. The only one that is a problem is the entry door as the other side of the door goes to the common area that we share with my mother-in-law (and more door handles)
- Swap out picture frames to quieten the gallery wall
- Find or create something to camouflage the electrical box cover
- Style the upper part of the cupboard in the hallway
- Frost the cupboard doors to make the cupboard look more like a chemist’s cabinet
- Decide on rugs and mats to unify the space
- Change out the artwork in the entry, perhaps even with something custom made
- Decide what (if anything) we want to fill the space in the entry and what additional storage is needed. This will have the biggest impact on the budget for the project.
- Find a wall treatment that will work with our textured wallpaper
- Create a better functioning landing strip
- Generally, tidy up the entry and get rid of some of the excess
Some ideas
These are two main ideas for the implementation of our hallway update project. However, these are still subject to change, depending on what furniture solution we select for the entry.
Source list
- NISSEDAL mirror from IKEA. This is only a place holder – we already have a square framed mirror that we are quite happy with.
- Simple white frames to reduce the visual clutter of the gallery wall.
- Frosted glass spray paint to give the IKEA Billy cupboard into ‘pharmacy’ look.
- Possible ‘Dalmation’ wallpaper for an accent wall.
- Scalloped or fan wallpaper for a possible accent wall.
- Navy trellis rug/runner for the floors in the entry and hallway.
- ‘Sometimes home is a person’ print. We already have this hanging in our entry.
- Abstract painting for the entry. We think it looks a little like a turtle.
- Dark pink velvet pillow. I think we already have one we can use if we go this route.
- ‘Zuhause’ pillow (Zuhause means home in German). I could even make something similar myself.
- Rope basket. We will need two for under our secretaire to replace the two that are falling apart.
- Colourful bubble wallpaper. I love this wallpaper. Absolutely adore. I’m not sure that Peter will agree to hang it in the entry as an accent wall, but I could hang it in my office…
- Turquoise velvet pillow. Again, I think I have one already that we could use (or 3 of them).
- ‘Welcome to our beautiful chaos’ pillow. This is another one I could quite easily DIY. And provide instructions/a template if I do.
- Navy and beige striped rug. I like this one and think it would tone down our rather orange floor tiles well. However, when I look at the mood board as a whole, this teal trellis runner could be better.
- Rainbow abstract painting, again for the entry. I like the way the colours work with the bubble wallpaper.
Our hallway update project: our budget
Of course, I will be working on a budget. Not counting the cost of the cupboard, which has already been paid for, we hope to spend less than EUR 200. This may need to be adjusted depending on what furniture changes we decide to make in the entry. Whatever money we get for the pusher or anything else we sell will also contribute to the budget.
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