I’m so excited to show you the before and after pictures of our main floor hallway renovation! The first photo is what it looked like before we got our eager little hands on it, and the second is early into our project.

It all began with the replacement of the light fixture. I also wanted to continue the look of the black and white walls seen in the upstairs hallway.

We had to remove the wallpaper in the stairwell and on the main floor. That was a process in itself. Once it was all gone, we set to tearing out the carpet on the staircase and continuing down into the hallway. I cannot express enough how disgusting that was. There was literally between 1-2 inches of sand and dirt covering every square inch of the floor. The staples were also covered in rust. It was just a smelly, dirty project. Our hands were definitely so sore after removing everything. However, once the carpet was out, we had begun to see an improvement.

Sanding the floors this time was not an easy feat. Unfortunately, Geoffrey’s sander (that we used for the upstairs hallway) died early into the sanding process. After he purchased a new one, it worked very well for the most part. It just took rather a long time. I would say that we sanded for over 15 hours. Next time we will certainly rent a large floor sander!

Geoffrey also had to add 3/4 round moulding along the walls. I was not in the best mood, and so I told him that he had to start and finish it all in one day. Mean, I know, but it worked! He got it all done in about 10 hours.

After cleaning up the sawdust that seemed to hang in the air and around the house over the next while, we spent the following weeks painting. We did the upper walls white and lower section black. I wanted something a little different for the ceiling. After much thought, I decided to go with black. The ceiling is high enough that I felt like it wouldn’t feel too closed-in. It turned out looking really great. What I didn’t take into consideration was the fact that we were also staining the stairs black. I perhaps overused the colour. Next time, I would go with either a black staircase and white ceiling, or white staircase and black ceiling. It is striking, though!

Finally, the stairs nearly drove us mental. As I said, we had to remove the carpet and staples. After doing so, we spent many hours stripping the layers upon layers of paint that were on the stairs. The smell of the chemicals mixed with the old wood was atrocious. It didn’t matter how many times I washed them after that, it would just not go away.

Geoffrey spent an entire day sanding the staircase. I felt really bad for putting him through more sanding, so I promised him that I would finish the project. I ended up applying three coats of black stain. It took me a few weeks, but in the end, I was able to complete it during Remy’s nap time. Phew.

Overall, this renovation took months to get it to the state that it’s in today. While we still need to stain the floors, I think that it looks much better than when we bought it. Do you agree?

P.S. Don’t forget to see how I made the hallway console and clay planter.

<3

Emory

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