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My husband and I moved into our home about 2 and half years ago. It's a cute little space, about 1,000 sq. feet of living area. One of the biggest obstacles we run into is making our home feel bigger, this artice talks about one project we recently did to make better use of our hallway.
Project One, The Hallway | |||
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This is the only hallway we have in our home and it has always felt very tight. There is a dinky cleaning closet at the end, and a linen closet to the right. We found ourselves not really using the dinky closet at the end of the hallway, and we were using the linen closet to dump various bathroom, personal, medical, you-name-it-can't-find-a-spot stuff.
GOAL: Convert the dinky closet at the end of the hallway to a showcase. | |||
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THE DEMO
Step 1 // Get Rid of Everything |
Remove all elements from the closet (doors, shelves, trim, etc.) The shelf was a little tricky to do, I ended up hammering from the bottom-up to release the shelf.
! Helpful Tip !Easily remove the trim by using a razor knife to cut through the paint, then stick a flat head in the crease and tap on the end of the flat head with a hammer to help release the trim from the edge. Do this from top to bottom and begin prying the trim off.
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Take a piece of sanding paper and go over every spot that you ripped out to make the surface smooth.
Step 3 // Mud and Sand
Take a mudding spatula and mud over any area that was semi-damaged when removing the shelves, trim, door hinges, etc. ! Helpful Tip ! I chose to mud over the hinges, the other option is to cut out wood pieces, glue them in and THEN mud over those. After the mud is dry, using medium-grit sandpaper, smooth the rough areas - paying particular attention to the edges with gentle, even pressure. I had to go back and mud some areas again, this is normal, sometimes you do sometimes you don't!
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Step 1 // Prime It
After the mud has completely dried, it must be 100% dry... use a nice primer and paint all of the walls, you may or may not need 2 coats, depending on how much mud you had to use and what the underlying color was before. ! Helpful Tip ! You must use a primer when mudding, using a "Paint + Primer" will not work and cause the paint to peel when you put painters tape on it.
Step 2 // Choose your Colors
Once the primer has had time to dry, you can now put your primary color paint on it. With my chevron pattern, I used an eggshell / light gray color. So first I painted the walls with my eggshell color, then let it dry. I only needed one coat since my primary color was so close to the primer color.
Step 3 // Create a Grid
You can do this by either measuring it out, or using something around the house that is square or rectangular (I used a small rectangular box). A lot of blogs tell you to put lines in using chalk, I used a pencil and put tiny dots at each corner of my rectangle box instead. Then take a ruler and connect the dots as follows, using a faint line (my quick example looks awful, I know).
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After you've created the lines, use your lines as a guide for your painters tape. When you're done, be sure to note which area will be your current color and which will not, I did this by filling in the DO NOT PAINT areas with the extra tape I had to cut off to make my sharp edges. Whatever areas will be your secondary color (in this case the light gray), you will need to cut the tape so the edges are sharp.
Step 4 // Paint with Perfect Edges
I HATE painters tape because the edge never looks good, so finally I looked up the proper way to use tape and it was the best thing I've ever found. So here is the secret... Make sure the tape is firmly pressed onto the wall. Then take the primary color (in this case it's the eggshell color), and lightly paint on the tape edge that your secondary color will be painted on (the gray). You're creating a seal for the tape using the same color as the wall currently is. THEN paint the secondary color (the light gray) on top of that and on the rest of the areas that need to be gray.
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THE SHELVING
Step 1 // Stain the Wood
You can do whatever color you want (I did driftwood from Lowes)
! Helpful Tip ! We ended up using brushes, the stain goes on a lot faster than with a cloth.
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Cut it down to the width of your closet, then decide on how many boards per shelf. I did 3 because I wanted a little space between each board (this will allow light to shoot through each shelf). Step 3 // Build the Shelf Holders
We used old quarter rounds to hold the shelves (2 per shelf). Place quarter round at each spot you want your shelf, you'll need 2 per shelf. Then paint them the primary (eggshell) color.
AND...DONE! Our finished product included various pictures and items. We also added 2 sensor lights to the closet since our hallway is a little dark.
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