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Cottage, DIY

Smooth operator

February 24, 2014

I am basking in the glow of a finished hallway, folks. After a weekend of painting and a few finishing touches, the hallway is looking so much better.

Smooth wall, relocated thermostat, new light, lots of paint

It was a weekend of many projects (I hope to show you the others soon), but I felt like I was running from one thing to the next. At one point I had four paintbrushes drying in the sink. The priority, though, was the hallway. Sometimes you just need to finish something up to cross it off the list, you know?

You would think a 6-foot hallway wouldn’t take long to spruce up, wouldn’t you? But with five doors and six doorways there was so much trim to be painted. And trim takes a long time to paint.

But let’s get to the fun part. Here’s what it looked like when all this started.

Hallway before

And here’s what it looks like now.

Fixed up hallway, smooth walls, painted

Here’s what went into it, in the (somewhat nonsensical) order we did it in:

  1. Sanded and painted the wood plant ceiling.
  2. Replaced the light.
  3. Sanded the texture off the walls.
  4. Sanded all the trim.
  5. Removed the closet doors to paint them in the basement.
  6. Did a final scraping on the walls to get the areas the sander missed.
  7. Primed the trim and wainscotting.
  8. Painted the wainscotting (Benjamin Moore Gray Husky).
  9. Moved and replaced the thermostat.
  10. Skim coated the walls.
  11. Primed and painted the walls (BM Mascarpone in matte finish).
  12. Painted the trim (BM Mascarpone in satin finish).
  13. Hung up a piece of art, sat back and gave myself a big high five.
I wouldn’t mind installing some beefier crown molding like we have in the kitchen, but I’m still smarting from our epic crown molding failure and I’m not ready to go down that road again. Replacing the doorknobs is also on the agenda, but all in due time. I have the glass doorknobs from my grandmother’s house but retrofitting pre-drilled doors with antique door hardware is remarkably difficult, not to mention expensive. We did replace the kitchen doorknob with one of the antique knobs. When we redid the upstairs we put in reproductions and I’d love all the doorknobs in the house to match someday. 
Antique round glass doorknob
Antique glass knob on the kitchen door. (Can you see me taking the picture?)
But those are minor details. For now I’m just enjoying the “new” hallway. In fact, I’m finding excuses to linger there a little bit. Perhaps the biggest compliment came from Mr. Much More Patient who, when he came home to find the hallway finished, said, “I should never doubt you.” Aw, thanks honey. Wait, what?
before and after DIY hallway
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
5 Comments

About Erin @ The Impatient Gardener

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Comments

  1. Elizabeth says: February 24, 2014 at 4:15 pm

    That hallway has come a long way! I like that you are trying to find a way to put the vintage/antique doorknobs in your doors. I have a couple from our old 1920s house that I would like to find a way to use in our new one…but I haven't figured that out yet so I'm curious to see if you find a solution!

    Reply
  2. Erin Schanen says: February 24, 2014 at 4:20 pm

    Hi Elizabeth. We actually did make the antique doorknob work on the kitchen but it required buying a lot of parts from House of Antique Hardware. We had to buy a new spindle and latch assembly plus a really large (and not entirely attractive) rosette to cover the big pre-drilled hole. All in all I think we spent about $35 on parts, so you have to be pretty dedicated to re-using those old doorknobs.

    Reply
  3. Katie @ Team Skelley says: February 24, 2014 at 10:00 pm

    Backhanded compliment! At least you backed it up – I am most likely to start a project, hit some sort of ridiculous snafu and then be on the smirking end of the Engineer. It looks fabulous, lady – I love that knob.

    Reply
  4. Heather - New House New Home says: February 25, 2014 at 11:53 am

    Its amazing how much work these small spaces create. But so worth the effort because it looks wonderful. I love the new light fixture!!

    Reply
  5. Brandi says: March 5, 2014 at 3:01 pm

    Your hard work sure paid off and now you have a beautiful hallway. I love your doorknob; little details like that make me happy!!

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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