Hello! Today’s post is the blog reveal of our bright and neutral hallway. To be honest with you this was completed about 6 months ago and I’m not sure why it has taken me this long to write the blog post but here we are. If you follow me over on Instagram then you will already have seen my new hallway multiple times. But if you don’t it will be brand new to you and we will start things off with a recap on how it looked before.
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So as you come into the house we have a small porch area. These photos are from the New Home – Ground Floor Tour that I posted not long after we moved in. The walls were magnolia, we had a temporary clothes rail with coats on and the shoe cupboard was on the right hand side.
Here is the porch from the other side, you can see the shoe cupboard from this angle. Then coming in from the porch we have a second front door that I leave open during the day as it blocks too much of the light otherwise. You can also see the dark grey of the hallway walls.
So overall it was just really plain in here. The grey was far too dark and it just made the space so dull. And don’t even get me started on the fact that the wall going upstairs was magnolia, a completely different colour to the rest of the room.
These last two before pictures show the beginnings of the stairway that had a red/brown banister and magnolia walls. It was just so clear to me that the hallway and the stairway needed to be the same colour! The walls were in a bad state too. A lot of the paint was chipped and scuffed.
So now that you have had a good look at all the before pictures let’s move on to the afters of our Bright and Neutral Hallway and discuss all the details!
The porch area is really a temporary makeover. I put up a rail for coats (both the rail and fixings are from the rothley range at screw fix) and we bought this cube storage unit and black cubes from B&M. In this we store hats, scarves, gloves, sun hats, sun cream etc we also keep carrier bags in one of the cubes. The black striped baskets that we use for shoes were also from B&M as is the small coat rack. I wanted to add this in for the kids so they can reach their own coats with the rail being so high. This all looks tidy and is very functional for us but eventually I would like to put some kind of wardrobe in here so that all the storage is hidden and I don’t have to look at coats and shoes as soon as I walk in.
You might not believe it but that shoe cupboard is part of the same white shoe cupboard in the before pictures! It originally had 3 drawers, the bottom of which the kids had ended up breaking as that is where their shoes were stored. So instead of throwing it away we cut down it down so we were just using the very top drawer. It was painted in Rustoleum, Black Sand and then we added a handle (we had these left over from our old kitchen) and a seat cushion to the top. It’s the perfect spot to sit and put shoes on and it still holds 4 pairs of shoes. The rug is the same we had at roman bank and is from La Redoute. You can also see in this picture that the door has had a little facelift.
This mirror in the porch was £10 from B&M that we also painted with Rustoleum Black Sand. It’s a temporary mirror that is just handy to have to check your appearance as you leave the house for now but I would love something a bit fancier. I’m loving the puddle mirrors so maybe one of those. Any way back to the door. We added some trim around the windows to make it look more finished and it’s been painted in Jaded Teal furniture paint by Wilko. I have mixed feelings about this paint as I love the colour but we are going to have to re do the entire door as the paint has reacted with the caulk despite having primed it.
Moving into the hallway the walls are painted in natural hessian by Dulux. This is a beautiful light neutral. The porch and going up the stairs is all the same colour.
This view just makes me smile every time I come home! The picture on the left is a print from our holiday to Whitby which brings back lovely memories. The rug is a Ruggable rug and if you’ve never heard of these before it’s a rug that comes in two parts. The decorative top layer can come away from the non slip base and then be washed in the washing machine. They are a little pricey but I think in a high traffic place like a hallway they are invaluable! The colours of this design matched the front door perfectly. The flooring throughout the downstairs is not the best but it would just be too pricey for us to replace as renters so rugs are a great way to cover not so pretty floors.
We bought this radiator cover from a seller on eBay. They list returned items at a discounted price so you can sometimes grab a bargain. This came in white with the wooden top but we painted it in Frenchic paint in the colour loof. Both the light shade and the 3 prints came from B&M. The prints were £7 each and the light shade was around £14 I think.
The styling on the radiator cover is pretty simple. The black vase was from Asda and the pampas from Amazon. I recently ordered this reed diffuser from Ava May Aromas. You can refill it and it’s absolutely beautiful. I went for the Pear, Patchouli and orange blossom scent and the smell is insane. I can’t remember where the gold leaf dish came from but the gold candlestick holder is from Wilko. The plant is one I made from stems purchased on eBay, you can find the tutorial for that here.
I think we can all agree that the hallway needed to be the same colour as the stairway. This is just so much more calming now and we also sanded the red varnish from the banister and re stained it in medium oak which is much more me. You can also see up the stairs to the middle landing which has also been redecorated now.
Here is the before and after next to each other so you can fully appreciate the difference! We didn’t have a hallway at roman bank and we never got around to decorating the entrance at Seaways so to have a beautiful entrance into my home is a dream come true for me! I would love to know what you think. Also if I’ve missed any links and you want to know where something is from just ask in the comments below and I will get back to you. Thank you again for reading this Bright and Neutral Hallway post and visiting my blog. I do really appreciate you being here. Until next time!
Lianne x
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