The World’s Cleanest Hallway

and the award goes to……(drum roll please)

 

The Penningtons!!!

 

Please let me enjoy it.  With 11 people living here, there’s no way we will be able to keep this prize for long, so I’m going to bask in it while I can.

Our long, narrow hallway had gotten to be so dirty, so grimy with hand prints and marks where the boys drove their hot wheels along the wall that I dreaded the long walk from my bedroom to the living room.  The chair rail was coming off, the trim we put up 8 years ago still hadn’t been caulked….shameful, but true.

I don’t have any before pictures of the entire hallway because it was so dark you’d wonder if I was showing you our house or a horror movie.  This picture is from the very end before you turn into the dining room.  I want you to see the color of the cabinet, because it is no longer pink/burgundy/whatever.  It was the last of the remaining burgundy in the house and I was ready to get rid of it.

Grace and Hope very sweetly offered to paint the hallway while I worked on other projects.

Once they finished, I got to work on the freshly painted cabinet.  Originally it had doors on the top, but I removed those years ago so I could put a little pizzaz into a dingy, dark space.

With the shelf being white, I needed to add depth and personality.  So I decided to paint stripes across the back and down the sides.  First I tried to use my algebra skills and figure out the exact measurement each stripe should be to divide equally in the spaces, but that took too much brain power.  In the end I just made them the width of the painter’s tape.

I mixed some craft paints together until I liked the color, kind of a green/gray.

Then remove the tape and voila!  Loveliness.

Then it was time to add the pretties.

Believe it or not, I had all of this stuff in my craft/sewing room just waiting for me to use.  Good thing I’m such a hoarder.

I saw on Pinterest how to make these Anthropologie style letters and I couldn’t wait to try it.  I love the way they turned out and it was super easy.

Please don’t ask what the “X” and “O” are for.  Everyone in the family has already asked me several times.  I have no idea people!  I just liked the shape of them.

I love the simplicity of it.

I made the twine knobs.  They, along with the plants, add the natural element that the shelf needs for warmth.

And now…when I look down my clean, caulked, white hallway I am not afraid.

And no more burgundy.

I have so many people to thank for this award.

 

Linking to: New Nostalgia, Today’s Creative Blog, Tip Junkie, All Thingz Related, Blue Cricket Design, Sugar and Dots, A Beach Cottage, Organize and Decorate Everything, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Beyond the Picket Fence, No Minimalist Here, Furniture Feature Friday, Fingerprints on the Fridge, Funky Junk Interiors, Beneath My Heart