The last thing we had to do was to choose a paint color that flowed with the grass cloth that we used along the stairway and downstairs hall. Below is a photo of the three samples. Our oldest son said the one on the right “looked the most like diarrhea” — so that was a definitive no. We chose the blue in the middle, which I think it’s fair to say looks the least like diarrhea. So there.

So here are all the pieces put together.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

View down the hall from another angle

The upstairs hall had one light fixture that was oversized, brassy, and definitely not original to the house. So we had an electrician add two more hall lights and now we have three fixtures — two smaller flush mounts, and one chandelier in the center of the hall.

I decided to go with crystalline lights because they were the closest to the original chandeliers downstairs.

Flush mounts:

They look great when illuminated but sometimes I worry that they’re too small when they lights are off. I may at some point add a medallion, but I don’t feel motivated to do anything about it right now. It’s fine.

Hall chandelier:

One of the easiest changes was simply brightening up the hardware throughout the upstairs. The brass knobs and pulls were original and quite tarnished.

Here’s a before shot of the closet doorknob (left)

We went at everything with Brasso and paper towel. (Wear gloves.)

Here’s a knob all covered in Brasso

And here’s the final result of the knob in my son’s room. Even though they aren’t perfect, they have character and are much brighter than before.

One of my favorite features is the hall laundry chute. I love it, and so do the kids. It’s the one chore I can actually get them to do without argument. Sure, stuffed animals, toy trains, and the occasional dinosaur take rides to the basement alongside the clothes, but whatever.

The only problem was that the chute had lost its hinge, so every time it was opened, the knob slammed into the wall. It had formed a permanent hole. Andy added a piano hinge, patched the hole, and now it’s good as new.

The upstairs hall closet backs up to our attic stairs, which made the closet mostly unusable.

Here is the before:

Gross, right? We just had it drywalled and added a shelf and now it’s a functional closet. I didn’t expect this photo to give such an intimate view of lady razors and Afrin, but now you know our shameful secrets — we have leg hair and stuffy noses.

One of the first things we did was restore the original linen cabinet.  When we were emptying out the top drawer, we found all kinds of old notes, including a very strongly worded draft of a letter from a mother to her daughter’s Scout troop, dated 1963. And, let me tell you, she did NOT care for their behavior at the most recent meeting and she laid out a perfect, guilt-inducing case against them. Based on the content of the odds and ends we found, this cabinet must have housed the upstairs phone at some point. (Barb was owed a call sometime around the Bicentennial.)

So here’s the original shot of what we inherited:

Step one was a good cleaning, followed by lining the drawers.

Step two was hiring a carpenter to build properly-fitting doors. My mom makes stained glass and had created panes years ago for the kitchen cabinets of my childhood home. My parents removed them before putting their house on the market, so I decided to incorporate them here both for the sake of my own personal nostalgia and because a glass door was a better look than a solid door. Stained glass in general, and this design in particular, also fit with the era and style of our house.

The next issue was trying to match the stain, which took my husband a frustrating weekend of experimentation. He did sample after sample after sample and finally found the right one with a reddish tint. It isn’t exact, but it’s close enough that it works.

Here’s the final look, with glass pulls and a painted hall.

After the complete makeover of the downstairs hall and staircase, the upstairs hall was a simple (and much cheaper) undertaking.

Here are the before shots:

View toward the stairs. Door on the right is a bedroom; door on the left is the attic.

As you can see in these shots, the upstairs floor is maple rather than oak, which everyone has told us is very unusual on a second floor. Our carpenter said that this layer of flooring is on top of another layer below. The house has a bump-out addition that encompasses part of our son’s room and the dining room below that we have dated approximately to the 1930s, so maybe they took that opportunity to add a new floor. Maple really can’t be stained dark the way oak can, but I don’t mind the blonde effect, particularly in bedrooms.

Here’s a view toward the third bedroom and bath (on the right). At some point the previous owners added a hall bath, so we have more angles in our house than a typical Four Square. We’re grateful for the bathroom, so no judgments here.

The built-in linen cabinet and view toward the master (closed door).

At some point, there were doors above here (you can see the hinge marks) but they are long gone.

The downstairs hall and staircase took almost a year of stops and starts to fully complete, but now it’s one of the most striking areas of the house. Whenever we’re feeling discouraged about our progress elsewhere, we just stand in the foyer and bask in its glory.

Here are the before and after shots.

Before:

During:

After:

The finishing touches were the radiator cover (which Andy painted the same white as the wainscoting), and a mirror that used to hang in my Grandma’s house.

Before shot up the stairs:

During:

After:

Before view from the landing down the stairs :

After view down the stairs:

Before view looking down from the second floor to the landing:

After:

Original view toward the door:

During:

Final view:

Before view toward the kitchen:

During:

After:

We removed the door that was here because it was unnecessary and in the way. We’ll save it to reuse it when we renovate the kitchen area.

So there it is! The completed entryway. For the huge pain and expense it turned out to be, at least it’s in a spot where everyone sees it. Just don’t think you’re getting out of there without hearing all about it.