The front hall has needed an overhaul forever. I sort of sporadically decided to paint it grey this weekend.
Well, let me backup a bit. Last year, when I was re-doing the laundry room, I was torn between Benjamin Moore Night Flower [a bold raspberry] and BM Kendall Charcoal. I chose raspberry for the laundry room but kept Kendall Charcoal on the back burner. Back in February I decided it would look awesome in the front hall, so I bought 2 quarts and painted some test spots:
The front hall was formerly the same green as the downstairs and upstairs hallways. I wasn’t sure if Kendall Charcoal was too dark or not, so I let the test spots sit for a couple months while I thought about it.
Thursday after work I decided to just go for it, and I put one coat on the entire front hall:
I liked the grey! So did hubby. Kendall Charcoal is a nice, natural grey. Not too brown, not too green, not too blue. If anything it leans towards brown, which I like. I also removed the folding door from the closet and have no plans to put it back.
This afternoon I put a 2nd coat on. But first decided to clear all the clothes and shoes out of the closet and get that ready to paint, too:
It all got dumped on the freshly cleaned off dining room table and floor:
Darwin helped, but he was more pissed than anything. He doesn’t like change:
Once everything was out, I decided the disgusting carpet had to go:
I removed the folding door hardware first:
Then used a screw driver to pry one corner of the carpet up, which easily ripped out. I taped it up and got it ready to toss in a trash bag:
I ripped out the carpet liner, then used my mini pry-bar to rip up the tack strips:
And finally a flat-head screwdriver & needle-nosed pliers to pull out the staples:
Leaving a clean closet floor with torn blue linoleum [random!]:
It was still better than the nasty carpet!
Then I spent the next hour & a half painting the closet grey and adding a 2nd coat to the entrance hall walls and closet:
As a last step I decided to paint the closet floor grey, too:
I’m going to be re-tiling the front hall and closet floor this summer so, in the meantime, I figured grey will look better than torn linoleum.
I also ordered a new front hall rug from Amazon [#affiliate], which I think will look awesome, and be a HUGE improvement over the nasty, stained one that’s been in the hall for the past 4 years:
The next step will be buying some ¾” plywood for the shelf, and painting it white. The old shelf was thin, brittle plywood.
There is nothing that makes a room look better than a fresh coat of paint. Your work in the closet reminds me that I need to do our as well. The to-do list is never ending!
Agreed! x2! Paint always helps refresh a room – and give it a new mood 🙂 When I first moved into the condo the front entrance hall, downstairs hallway, laundry room, and upstairs hallway were all the same color. Now the laundry room and front entrance hall have their own personalities 🙂 And you’re right – the to do list is NEVER ending!
Great color!! Looks so sharp with the white trim!
Thanks, D’Arcy! It came out better than I expected – I thought for sure it would be too dark. It will look even better once I repaint the trim 🙂
Wow, I love the grey. It looks terrific.
You’ll get to see it in person soon!