the story of a hall – part I

The story of how our Hall came together is a little long. So I’ll probably do it in parts. No, I can’t do “the long story short” thing. There are too many details I want to mention to show how sometimes time is your best ally when it comes to decorating. I know it could be frustrating. I’m a very impatient person myself and want to see results right away. But sometimes things take their own timeframe.

The Hall is one of the first rooms we repainted in the house. When I moved in with the mister (did I mention the house where the mister grew up is our house now? I didn’t? That’ll be another post then) the Hall was painted this Nantucket Grey color from Benjamin Moore,  which in other room or situation I’d have found elegant and rich. But not in this Hall. Add to that the austere furnishings and decor, and the lack of natural lighting, and the room was, well, sad. I didn’t like going up and down that hall everyday. Walking by its bare, cold walls just put me in a bad mood. It was dark and sad.

At that time we were having our closet done, so the mister thought it would be a good idea to have the same guys paint the Hall. We’d have done it ourselves, but the Hall included the stairhall and the double height which would have been a headache. (we are not that good at painting).

We had someone to paint. Now we just needed to choose a color. The mister suggested purple. I like the idea. Purple is one of my favorite colors anyway. We just needed the right purple. Easy, right? Well, the mister couldn’t pick a more proper time to ask me to choose: a chaotic morning while we are rushing to get L to the bus stop and getting ready for work. He said it was now or never, because the guys were done with the closet. So I grabbed the Benjamin Moore paint chip wheel and chose a random purple. Croqus. I guess I just liked the name. No time for paint samples. Croqus would be.

That day I was up for a big surprise when I got home. Croqus was, how can I say it, overwhelming. It was definitely not the purple I imagined. Needles to say, the mister didn’t like it, and to be honest I didn’t either. But at that point, anything was better than the sad Nantucket Grey.

With the days Croqus grew on us. The more we walked by the Hall, the more we started to appreciate it. It was overwhelming, but cheerful. It was a happy color.

Next step was thinking about furnishings and decor. I probably spent way too many hours on the internet thinking about the perfect console table.  We even visited a couple of places and were very closed to buy a very nice piece, but the price made us reconsider. I’m glad we did.

At the same time, I was thinking about our staircase. I remember a post I saw on Apartment Therapy a while ago. A very ingenious idea that I archived in my “future projects”. I first thought applying the idea to our stairs to the basement. But the main staircase needed something, too. What was the project? A vinyl decal applied to the risers of the stairs. Very clever, right? I remember the minute I read the post I went to the Wall Pops website to see what other designs they carry. They don’t have a big variety to choose from, but I found one that could work.

And it really worked! It gave the otherwise boring staircase a little sophistication. In my plans was also painting the balusters white. I like the look of oak railing and threads with white balusters, and I think that would balance a little more the white in the risers. But that’s a project we are not ready to tackle anytime soon. That went straight to our never-ending project list.

At least the Hall was seeing the light.

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