Suspended Animation - The Hallway & Stairway

One of the most difficult areas to re-do in the house was the entrance foyer, stairway and upstairs hallway.  With the 1 3/4 style of our house, it seemed like all of the angles came together in the stairway, plus there is an incredible amount of trim and built-ins, not to mention the how high everything was.

...and the walls were horribly grubby, even after scrubbing.  Because we were using such deep, rich colors throughout the house (and we needed to cover stains, etc.), we used a gray primer in most of the areas.

The downstairs entrance foyer was fairly straight forward and was painted and the floor in before we moved into the house.

The wall between the front door and living room is decorated with a vintage mirror I picked up via Craigslist when we were back in Ohio.

With other accroutrements beneath it and on the wall between the stair and kitchen doorway picked up a various thrift stores.  (Here you can catch a glimpse of the next major project... the kitchen.)

As I mentioned, the height and angles provided a big challenge in this area, not only reaching everywhere but also doing it neatly.  These photos should give an idea about what we faced:

Ended up, I had to put the roller pan on the landing that was about 2/3's up, stand up at the top of the stairs, dip the roller or pad in the paint from the end of a long extension pole and then try to accurately paint the wall and ceiling.  Whew!!!



And inevitably, I missed a spot.  Guess I overlooked it because it was down next to my feet and not 15 or 20 feet high up.

Robyn and I decided that this area would be where we would hang the melange of photos from our two families.

In the upstairs hallway between the middle bedroom doorway and the built-in cabinets, we put the wedding photos that Kyle and Alyssa gave us for Christmas... just enough room with about 1/2 inch on either side of the frame.

...with the remainder going on the stairway wall.