upstairs hallway: a fresh look

Remember this hotness? Our upstairs hallway and foyer was your standard cream/light beige, which isn't awful, just bland (especially with the lovely beige carpet). Once we had started painting rooms, the scuffed hall walls (say that three times fast!) were really starting to bother us. Plus, the trim was worn and scuffed and warranted a fresh paint job, too. So, while I worked in the guest room, Mike primed the hallway trim.





The great thing about painting the trim first and staying in the light color range for wall paint? Everything is faster, because you only need to tape off the carpet and you don't have to worry about being tidy. No, the real ordeal involved choosing a color.

I'm not going to completely reiterate our struggles (see above link), but this is what our hallway looked like at one point.

We had swatches going down both main walls at mid-height and against the trim, because we wanted to make sure the trim didn't completely blend with the wall. Against the cream, everything looks very colored, but when dealing with whites or near-whites, each of these swatches will be lighter once painted on the entire wall. This was hard to keep in mind as we debated and we had opposing desires: I wanted more color to make the trim pop and not look sterile, and Mike wanted as close to white as I'd allow. ;-)

Finally, we both liked Valspar Polar Star (very close to Sherwin Williams' First Star, which we liked in the original swatches, though Valspar looks darker than SW in the above pic, the two right big swatches). But Mike wanted it a little lighter, so our favorite paint gal at Lowes lightened it by 20%.

I was nervous it might be too white, especially since the color changes throughout the day, but it seemed to behave itself in both daylight and artificial light, so it got the thumbs up. The contrast is most apparent in corners, near the trim, and against our stop points.

So, here's the stop point where the narrow hallway opens to the balcony-like area. The great thing about this paint is that it really neutralizes the effect of yellow lighting (we did upgrade our lightbulbs, too, before we painted). Of course, now this crisp paint makes the rest of the foyer and banister look worn and scuffed.

The difference in this shot doesn't quite show up on camera. Fresh paint on the left, old cream on the right. In real size, the scuffs near the corner are super obvious now. Hmm.

So, here's a shot in the daylight. The difference is subtle in the shot, but you can see some of the shadow play down near the trim.

And here's the same view at night.

You can see the light play from the chandelier (left of the shot's edge). That really messed with us when we were rolling, because it was hard to tell if we missed spots or not. But it was so worth it (and two coats of paint, with some leftover in the bucket for touch ups, if needed) - the hall feels so fresh! It feels cleaner, though we're itching to replace the carpet with hardwood.

Another shot, looking from the back of the hall. Still need to put the guest room door back on. Hardwoods will have to wait, because it looks like we'll have to replace Frankenfurnace before winter kicks in. Yaaaaay.

If you look at the trim at the top of the stairs, you'll notice a little white piece before you hit the stair trim. That's my mistake. I should have cut off at the corner instead of continuing that little piece of trim. Oh well.

We decided to keep the cabinet unpainted, because we like bringing some warmth back into this space, and it blends better with the banister and foyer trim. The brass light has been orb'd (not hung yet, letting it cure) and we'll continue to use it until we find a cool light at a bargain price.

So what's next for this hallway? Some decorating and, yeah, I should probably paint the stair spindles (lots of chips and scuffs, and they're cream). When will we get to the foyer? Who knows, probably not until we tackle the dining room, but I wouldn't mind continuing this color into the foyer. The great thing about going this light and subtle is that aesthetically we don't have to paint the foyer any time soon. The colors don't fight, which was exactly what we were going for: freshen and brighten without snowballing into an immediate full foyer job.