OK! So this has been a little side-project of mine....a midst redecorating the kithcen....
Yes, I really have been busy!!
We have this tiny little hallway, leading out to the garden and the bathroom from the living room.
Because our house is pre-Victorian....built before bathrooms were considered a necessity, it is an extension at the back of the house, and it was added without much thought to a practical floor plan sometime within the last 80 years! This has left us with a tiny little hallway with no less than 3 doors leading off it!!
It is a a bit like "Takeshi's castle" (see minute 3:50 in the link...it's hilarious, I promise!!) trying to maneuver between the living room, out to the garden and into the bathroom!!
It has a little recess, that used to house the gigantic old boiler ....which we replaced with a smaller modern one last year...But since then this space had become a messy dumping ground with exposed pipework and an uneven floor!
Que ugly "before" pictures:
A total mess, right??
So we got a carpenter in to box in the pipework and build some useful shelves in the recess.
He did a great job, creating shelves that fit around the new boiler and can come away if we need access to the pipework and with panels for access to the electrical sockets!
An improvement, for sure! But it still looked messy, as we didn't use our new storage to its potential...it was still a dumping ground!! And the manky old carpet (had probably been there since the 70's!!) along with the tatty magnolia painted walls made for a very dull space indeed!! (DON'T get me started on the color Magnolia: It's the epitome of DULL!!)
The door leading out into the garden, was also looking past it's sell-by date, it was dirty with an old cat-flap that was falling apart. Another issue with this door was that in the summer, the evening sun would come straight through the glass panel and near-enough blind you if you were sitting on the sofa in the living room...making it impossible to watch a bit of telly!! (Yes, I LOVE watching a bit of telly in the evening....who doesn't??)
So although this was a very small space, it had some issues, and needed makeover!!
Nothing fancy: A lick of paint, new flooring and some organizing... but of course with some "Nostalgiecat" style creative solutions, to keep the cost down!!!
And here's what it looks like now!!
A lick of paint...tick! New flooring....tick! Even the old door to the garden has had a makeover: I used spray paint to refresh the colour and installed a new cat flap! Even the glass panel has had a transformation, but more on that further down the post!!
I replaced the old carpet with some patterned stick down vinyl tiles...easy!!
Comfortable under foot, and just the right colour combination to suit my taste...(I also love that they are called "Marrakesh", as that's where me and Mr had our last holiday(/before Little Miss Moo was with us....gosh that's 6 years ago: We really need a holiday!!)
I used the silvery grey paint I had leftover from when I stenciled the hallway, and my old bedroom curtains from IKEA has once again come in useful, covering the shelves and helps neatening up the space!!
I love mixing patterns, and the subtle colours of the vinyl tiles and the curtains works really well with each other, don't you think? And as luck would have it, the silvery grey paint is a great match to both!!
Here's the view from the bathroom, facing the door leading into the living room.
I made a removable "faux" stained glass geometric pattern for the glass panel in the door leading out into the garden!
Although subtle in the colours (bar the pop of yellow!!:)) it helps take the glare of the sun away when I am watching telly on the sofa!
I will show you how I made it in my next post!
Remember how messy my shelves were?? Well, with the curtain, I can hide it all away....
But I have made a conscious effort to organize this storage space:
As it is situated just outside the bathroom, it made sense to store laundry, towels and extra toilet roll here!
I also placed my beloved old gilded mirror there (My Farfar (grandad) gilded this for me when I was a child, and the frame used to surround the wedding picture of my great great grand parents....so it's very special to me!!) and created a space where I can do my hair and make-up, with easy access to the electrical sockets for plugging in the hair drier and my straightening irons!!
...freeing up the bathroom for other necessities! I'm sure this space will become very useful when Little Miss Moo becomes a teenager ....LOL!
So this space has gone from useless, awkward and messy to a lovely and functional space (although maybe still a bit awkward with the doors...)
This little makeover shows that with a little effort, you can make the most of the space you've got....and even an awkward little hallway can be beautiful!!
I love it! But for how long will I manage to keep those shelves tidy? Only time will tell!! But even if they do get a bit messy, all I have to do is pull the curtain shut!!
