Down the hall….

We have two hallways that I want to discuss. One is a regular run-of-the mill-hallway; the other…not so much….

First, the boring hallway.

It’s on the main floor and houses the ½ bath, coat closet, reading room (see earlier post), and the laundry closet.

The ½ bath was done ages ago as we needed closer facilities before we were able to move upstairs. Unfortunately, that meant I had to travel down a flight of stairs in the middle of the night to use said facilities. This was such a delight when my ankle was still mending as I had to “boot up”, go downstairs, do the business, walk back upstairs, and then take the boot off.

 Ahhh…fun times….

Everything in the ½ bath is new. For some unknown reason, the original homeowners thought dusty purple laminate was a great idea for a bathroom vanity. To each their own, I suppose…. Instead, I chose a navy vanity from Lowes that was in stock at the time. I like it much better than the laminate, I can tell you….

The hall coat closet and the laundry closet only needed new doors and paint.

I don’t really understand laundry closets. The only way to do your laundry is to pile it in the hallway. Not convenient at all…. Maybe most people do laundry more regularly than I do…?  

This arrangement is one of the reasons we put laundry facilities upstairs in the master bedroom area.  It’s certainly safer than hauling 2 tons of laundry down the stairs every time I decide to do laundry, which is usually when we are running out of clean clothes. And if you’ve read the rest of my posts, you know I’m not the most graceful on the stairs…. Safety first!

Now for the weird hallway, which is the hall that connects the master bedroom to the master bath(s).

There is an odd roomish area in between the master bedroom and the baths and closets. I say “roomish” because it is too small to be a useful room but too large to stay empty. I left it alone for a long time until I figured out what I wanted to do with it. I settled on using it as a sort of display room for all of our tchotchkes that we’ve accumulated over the years. I purchased two inexpensive cabinets from Ikea and got to work.

 We have ceramic dogs given to Jeff by his grandmother next to Chiefs memorabilia. We have wedding mementoes next to painted items from my grandmother. Basically, all of the things you would keep in storage for sentimental reasons are now on display just for us. Having these display cabinets gives us an opportunity to enjoy items that don’t go together but are meaningful to us.

Across from the display cabinets are doors leading to a balcony. The balcony has been inspected and is sound but needs a refurb. I plan to paint the rails white and replank the floor with gray composite, but that’s future Stephanie’s problem.

Well, let’s be honest….

That’s future Jeff’s problem.

We needed a door somewhere on this floor to close off our bedroom (for privacy). Why there wasn’t a door is anybody’s guess. I prefer not to think about it. We decided to locate it on the other side of the display room. Richard (our contractor) made doors for this purpose as we couldn’t find any that fit properly.  They match the style of doors on the other side of the bedroom, and they look great!

If you continue down the hallway, past the bathrooms and my closet, there is a linen closet and a set of stairs that takes you to the kitchen. Originally the stairs had a floor to ceiling glass block wall.  (The 80’s called. They want their glass block back…). Obviously, it had to go. Richard and Breck knocked the wall down and Richard made a very sturdy rail. I can’t find any before photos of the glass block which is a bit sad as I can’t reminisce about how bad it looked. Suffice it to say, the rail looks MUCH better.

So that’s that: two hallways that needed major work. It’s no longer drudgery to go “down the hall.” In fact, it’s rather nice…