Our Hallway, Before & After!

Hallways?
Really?  I expect you to get all excited to look at pictures of my hallway?

YES. I do. First of all, having a hall is kind of a big deal in NYC- apartments are tiny here, so tiny, there is no room for hallways, and so tiny you can see everyone in every room from anywhere.

We have been big-time blessed to have a pretty roomy apartment here in The Harlem.  We also have two nooks!  Nooks, I say! Wait til you see what we did with them!

So without further ado- our hallways.  As you may know, we got a great deal on this apartment partly because it was in such bad shape. We renovated the whole thing by ourselves.
Much of the step-by-step here in the halls is the same as the Master Bedroom. 

First step: the "before" phase!

This is nook #1.  Behind the wall is the kitchen. We used Rustoleum to spray paint the gray-dinge rusty radiators so they were bright white and shiny!

You can really see all the wall staining that had accumulated over the years.

The old carpet was stapled to the concrete floor, so the little spots on the floor are bits of carpet padding caught in the staples.  Andy pulled all those out with our prybar.

If you back up from the window, you can see the doorway to the kitchen, and some extra junk lying around.  The owner took forever to get her old stuff out of the apartment.  

More carpet staples to pull here too.  Notice, while you're at it, the ugly tile kitchen flooring.

If you go around the corner above, this is the view.

Bathroom and 2nd bedroom on the right, two closets on the left, and the Master Bedroom at the end of the hall.  Notice the big container of ceiling paint on the floor- that's why there's blue tape all the way down the top edge of the wall.  This is right after the ceiling had been painted.  You'll see we tried out a few paint colors on the walls here.

Our awesome friends, Audra and Jill, came over and helped us paint the trim in the hall.  We bought them Wendy's as a thank you (lame). 

Audra, paintbrush, Me, paintbrush, Jill, paintbrush 

Our favorite color in our whole apartment is this deep teal called Cathedral by Behr.  We ended up painting both nooks in it.  Jill did the first coat...

With Andy supervision...?

 Andy did coat #2.  What did I do?  I took pictures, ran to Wendy's, and tried to find a station to listen to on the radio... we found the book of II Kings being read aloud and a Soul station. Better luck next time.

No actually, I painted a ton of trim that day. Just sayin'.

We used the sconces that came with the apartment and used the same Rustoleum to paint the brass bases white. Totally transformed!  Here's the freshly painted hall:

The wall color is called Reflecting Pool- it's a super light gray with a teeny bit of blue.  The trim color is  Hushed White, both are by Behr.

Then Andy put in the floor, as I Goo-Gone'd any patches of flooring glue that got left over along the way.  For a long time we were walking around in slippers on the concrete, then taking them off whenever we'd walk on the bits of floor that were done. 

One day, the floor in the hallway was done, the trim was painted, the radiator cover was reinstalled, and there was great rejoicing! 

 Now, the nook above... what do you do with a nook like that?
We thought- inspired by a certain post on Young House Love (here)- we should build in a double desk.  Andy's company was moving, so they were getting rid of real nice office chairs and computer monitors, and Andy's second request after asking me to marry him was, "Can we have a file cabinet in our future apartment? I want to be able to file things." Man Moments again.

Not only did I say yes to both questions, I built the file cabinets myself.  I have a hidden talent for putting furniture together.  I'd do it for a Frosty anytime.

I made two of these.

Tired, Penelope? "Yawn... this is soooo easy"

I'm so good at putting furniture together that I even noticed when the manufacturer made a mistake. They attached the metal drawer shaft to the wrong side of one of the drawer pieces.  Yeah.

Meanwhile, Andy was measuring and installing a brace for our desk. We bought a wooden butcher block countertop at Ikea to use as the desktop.  It was probably the heaviest thing I've ever lifted.

 We had to cut out a small piece so it would "nestle" into the nook.

Then we nestled it!
Look how nice it looks!  We also ordered blinds for every window that roughly matched the floor color and installed those too.

Looking good right?

 Here is the brace on the right wall. Nice construction, eh?

One of the most ingenious parts was how Andy finagled the holes for all the wires and cables.  

The wires go through a 2" hole he drilled in the desk (insert little cap thingy), and they come out behind the file cabinets so you can't see them.  They plug into a power strip that is attached to the bottom of the desk.  In the end, you only see one cord plugging into the wall next to the desk.  The rest is hidden. 

Did I mention that my amateur electrician husband also installed new can lights on a dimmer above the desk?  So cool!

After adding chairs, computers, office supplies, curtains, etc, we have THIS:

 New built-in desk!  Naturally, Andy immediately started filing things.

It's probably our favorite feature of our whole renovation. We love it. I'm sitting at it right now!  If I turn and look down the hall, I see this:

Check out the pretty white baseboards too!

As for the second nook, we are currently using it as a little reading nook. It's actually wasted space- I'll be honest, I've rarely read there.  It's in a south-facing window, so it might be a good place to start a little indoor garden.  Hm... ideas, ideas!  Do you have any other thoughts?

 I'll finish you off with a few Nook #2 details that I like!

Special chair that we inherited.

This marble-top piece belonged to my grandmother.

One of my favorite wedding gifts- it's a print that was in my house growing up.  It's a couple sleeping in on a Saturday morning with a city skyline out the window.  My mom reframed it and gave it to me. 

 That's all! What do you think?  I'd love to hear any ideas for Nook #2!