Just down the hall...

*** 2 posts today folks... after this one... keep reading!***

Can't say I didn't warn you about the color...

Whenever people come over to our house and are taken on a tour for the first time they want to know how it's changed.  It's difficult to explain how interesting the color palette was before we moved in.  I've finally come up with the term "condiment colors".  The main rooms of the house were done in shades of mustard yellow, relish green, and as you will soon see, ketchup red/orange-- a BBQ nightmare.  Thankfully we had lots of helping hands when it came time to paint!

Paint made a huge improvement-- as did removing the mirrored bifold that didn't quite close all the way.  That closet door drove me crazy-- it was next to impossible to close, and if you managed to succeed... it was ridiculously difficult to open.  Not so efficient.  Like the rest of the house, flooring was next on the agenda.

Once the flooring was in, the real work began-- the finishing!  When it came to this step-- Doug and I spent more time in the hallway than any other room in the house because there are so many doorways-- meaning lots of cutting, lots of filling and sanding, and lots of painting!  But I think the finished product looks amazing-- I wasn't going to put the hallway in the tour, but sometimes I think it's my favorite part of the house because of all the long hours we spent putting it together last fall!  So, here it is!

When I saw how great the closet looked all trimmed out, I decided that I couldn't put doors back on.  It kind of looks like built in shelves.  Believe it or not, this is my linen closet.  I do keep extra pillows and duvets in one of the basement closets, but all of my bed linens are stored in here.  We did purchase a new bifold door for the closet-- so the day I can't keep it looking like this... the door goes back on.

I'll admit, sometimes I choose aesthetics over practicality.  I guess I'm a sucker for pretty things.

Amazingly... Caleb hasn't bothered to touch my neatly folded linens... and the closet has survived many bouts of hallway hockey.

Here's a few pictures that show off the amazing finishing Doug pulled off.  When we were selecting the mouldings for the house, we decided to go with a mix of modern and traditional-- flat modern baseboards and plinth blocks with more traditional architrave headers and crown moulding.  Whoa-- how's that terminology for you?  All of those art history classes have really pulled through for me!

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I made a trip to Ikea to pick up a few things for a project I was working on (see this post).  Here's the finished project... a family photo wall for the hallway!

I don't have a lot of family pictures on display in my house since there aren't many places to display them in my house.  The hallway is the perfect place for my pictures.

I am usually a fan of gallery walls that mix and match frames of different colors and textures, but the hall is pretty narrow and I wanted the pictures to blend in more so that I wouldn't be too prominent.  Ikea's Ribba frames worked out perfectly for me-- they come in lots of different sizes and they're cheap!  We had some of our favorite family photos printed in a variety of sizes, came up with an arrangement that worked for the space, and put them up!  Doug is the master when it comes to hanging pictures.

You'll notice that the big frame doesn't have a family picture... yet.  I decided to keep the boat picture in there until we have a family picture where Emerson is a bit older.

And that's my hallway!  Is it weird that it could be my favorite room of the house?