Boring White Hallway Made a Little More Interesting

We have a very narrow hallway with five doors. I decided to paint the hall the same color as the doors and trim to keep it from being too "busy." I was right. It wasn't busy, but it was really boring. After looking at it for 7 years, I finally decided to try to add some interest.

The 'After' of our long narrow hallway.

The 'Before'. Long, Narrow,and dull!

We (that means Hubby) started the transformation by running a straight 1x3 board 36" from the floor. We chose this height because it matches the height of our half walls in our living room. The half wall is across from the hall and they are both visible from our living area, we thought the consistency in height would be visually pleasing.

This is the end of the hall. Only a few inches of wall, but it gets trim, too.

On top of the 1x3 we nailed right angle moulding. We use a nail gun-one of my favorite power tools-but you could use small finish nails.

As we began installing this trim, we realized that our walls were really bowed. . When we first fitted the trim right against the walls, we realized that it really accented the bow in the wall as you look down the long hallway.We decided to run the moulding straight and fill in the gap between the moulding and the wall with paintable caulk. Now, looking down the hall, the walls appear to be musch straighter. It is an optical illusion that makes a big difference. I had planned to use peel & stick decals above the chair rail, but realized that I didn't have nearly enough and couldn't get any more. So plan B.

We then adding lattice strips to form the "panels" below the railing and after filling all the nail holes and the tiny gaps between the wood strips and the walls, we painted the bottom white and I stenciled the top with a Wall and Floor stencil from Hobby Lobby. (I am really bad about not taking 'in progress' pictures, so I don't have partial pics of the stencil in progress.) I stenciled all of the large areas first, and then cut the stencil into smaller pieces to go around the edges of the doors and tight spaces.

After finishing the project, I though that the white panels on the bottom just didn't quite work, so patient Hubby helped me repaint it the same color as the adjoining living area.

We think the darker area looks much better. Do you agree?

We just set the lattice strips right on top of the baseboard.

Close up of stencil, trim, and grey wall.

Close up of the end of the hallway. It may appear from this picture that the stencil is not balanced on either side of the door, but the pattern is in line with the whole stencil so as you stand in the hall it makes sense.

I still plan to add something to the upper walls. I can't hang anything that sticks out very far or is valuable or heavy bacuse the hall is so narrow we risk bumping into anything that is hanging. I also don't want to cover a lot of the stencil. I am looking for interesting airy metal pieces and will post an update when I find them. This was a simple and inexpensive project that we think has made a lot of difference.

Original article and pictures take http://www.hometalk.com/12167115/painting-stencilling-boring-white-hallway-makeover site