Before & After Pictures: The Hallway

In going through our photos, I realized there aren't many of the hallway itself. That's probably because it was creepy. Then it spent the winter covered in plastic and we only went back there when we really, really had to pee. And honestly, who takes a camera for that? (No. I don't want to know. Suffice to say that we aren't among those who do.) However, I pieced together what I could, so here goes.

This is the hall, as seen from the living room, when we bought the place. The hallway was, as everything else in the house, carpeted.



You can see the orange carpet in one of the bedrooms, and just in front of that, what we've been calling "the icon closet" (it finally decided to become a linen closet). The door to the basement is open. I don't know why. You can't see the old coat closet (now the washer/dryer cubby), but it's just past that door. The hall looks really long, to me, in this picture. I'm not sure why.

Nothing new to report on the whole process; out came the paneling, the carpet, the subfloor, and the doors. (The basement door we just cleaned and left on because, really, that was better than leaving the basement exposed. Ew.) So, here it is, a bit barren, but no longer inciting the willies in passersby. (This was taken from the other end of the hall, looking back toward the living room.)



And here, as it has spent the majority of our time thus far, with walls, paint, subfloor. And, it has two lights, one at each end, rather than one in the middle. The exciting stuff is in all the wiring, but you can't see that. It's a little plain vanilla, but how much time does one spend in the hallway? It's clean and not health-threatening. We'll hang stuff later, when decorations rise to the surface of the priority heap, um, list.



And then, only a year later (*snort*), here we are!



Miss Emily is thrilled with the new floor!



There's a lot of trim and detail work still to be done. But it's the fine carpentry stuff (such as borders near a few edges for the paint changes, since we used bullnose beading on the corners and that doesn't give a good, clean edge for a color change, baseboards - you can see that in detail.) But don't they look happy? And mostly clean?



And, if you'll pardon the mess (it's only about 50 feet from the front door to the kitchen, as the crow flies, but with everything upended while we work on the floor, it's a good two-mile hike over everything), here's a look at the foyer, from the living area. That arch is my happy spot. When I get overwhelmed by it all and think we'll never be finished, I sit in the kitchen and look over at my arch. *happy sigh*



Tomorrow, more flooring to put down. We're a little over halfway done with all of it, so that feels good. There's just a lot of shuffling, feeding, and tending to be done amidst all of it, so it's a slow process. But thanks for being patient and encouraging. It's really coming along. We forget just how much, until we look at the "before" pictures. That drives the changes home pretty quickly. It's amazing how quickly something can become "how it's always been" - it's an encouraging sensation.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy