The to-do list

As I mentioned in my last post, we recently finished one of the many, many items on my very, very long to-do list!

And here it is:

Some of you may not remember (who am I kidding - none of you remember, I'm sure!) what the hall floor looked like BEFORE:

That gaping hole is an air intake for the heating/AC Unit.  Terrible place for it, I know.  The dogs are scared to death of it, even when we put the metal cover back over it. Just something we deal with in an old house.



 I tried to cover it with a rug, and many of my friends have mentioned that they never noticed the floor in the hallway before, and didn't notice when we changed it.  But I noticed.  I hated that ugly white(ish) tile with the gray mottling that always looked dirty.  Well, it is dirty no more! It is now a warm and lovely cork flooring, same as what we have in the kitchen.  I had hoped that there would be salvagable oak flooring under the tile (fat chance, right?), and there was some, but most of the floor was tile backer board over plywood.  It would have been a lot more money and a MUCH longer time frame to install a new wood floor, so I went with the cork, and I really do love it.

So, what's next?  Hmmmmm...



an odd little space...

The first time I saw my house I fell in love with a couple of features.  One of those features was the hallway.  Weird. I know. But I'd never seen a hallway like this one.  It's square, for one thing, sort of like a very small room with lots of doors.  And no windows.  And it has floor to ceiling bookshelves!  Who has bookshelves in the hallway?  But I'm a sucker for bookshelves, wherever they may be.

The bookshelves!

The floor is hideous.  I love the rug, but because of the heating grate in the floor, it can't be any bigger.  Boo.

A portion of the solid wall.  That. Is. Red.  And yes, I do know that there is some baseboard and door molding missing.

Not just red.  High gloss red.

The hallway was painted blood red, and I kind of liked it, so it's still there.  And coincidentally, I love red.  There are small amounts of red in almost every room of my house, so it kind of fits.  But back then the opposite wall from the bookshelves (the "picture gallery" wall - sorry, I know some people hate that, but I happen to like it)  had a doorway into the former dining area of the kitchen, leaving not so much wall space.  That doorway was closed off when we remodeled the kitchen, so now it is a solid blood red wall, and it seems sort of over powering, not to mention a tad dark for a "room" with no window.  In my continuing attempt to neutralize, I'm thinking about a natural color grasscloth...what do you think?

Obviously there is some work that needs to be done here.  We will be replacing that god-awful tile on the floor, which is why we don't have baseboards and some of the molding in there yet.  Since there is hardwood in the entire house, we're thinking it probably has hardwood under it, but obviously it won't be in good shape, so that will be an undertaking we're kind of not ready for at this point.  Another someday job.  This house will keep us busy for years!