Hallway Refresh

This dark dead-end hallway was boring and needed a refresh. Check out what we did to make this a more appealing and happier space!

The Before

Where to start with this dead-end hallway? The overall darkness, the chair rail, the awkward yet narrow walkway, or the lack of a linen closet…

I’ve always been bothered by the floor plan layout of this hallway. The angled wall to the right creates a very narrow walkway from the landing of the stairs. Since we aren’t changing the walls or layout of this space, I had to decide on what could be changed.

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What We Did

We opted to remove the unnecessary chair rail. Chair rail has a place in dining rooms to protect walls from chairs being pushed up against the wall. Why the chair rail was installed upstairs in this hallway will always be a mystery to me!

We repaired the walls from the chair rail removal and installed board and batten.

I found this gorgeous Dark Multi Moody June Blooms peel-and-stick wallpaper from WallPops. I loved the blue accent color paired with the different shades of green and tiny bits of orange.

This was my first time installing peel-and-stick wallpaper and it was fairly easy. I did find it a bit challenging to line up the patterns perfectly. I love it though and the print adds so much life and cheerfulness to this dead-end wall.

After applying primer to the wood, we painted a fresh coat of Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray SW7029 paint on the walls. I opted to paint the board and batten the same as the original paint color as a way to color drench the space. The original white chair rail and trim stood out, and not in a good way!

It took me several days of sanding and fully preparing the walls to be primed and painted.

Once all the painting was complete, we moved our antique pie safe back into place. The blue cabinet which we use for linen storage, was the inspiration behind my selection of wallpaper, area rug runner, and table lamp.

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HOT TIP: Find an inspirational piece to begin developing your design plan. This can be artwork, a pillow, an area rug, a pretty pattern on a dish… you can draw inspiration from almost anything! Your design plan will have a purpose once you do. You’ll know what colors or patterns you are drawn to and a clear direction of what you would like to try and incorporate into the space.

To help add some light to this hallway, I found this adorable blue glass table lamp on Amazon and the white wall mirror was on clearance at Hobby Lobby. The mirror helps to reflect light and also makes the hallway feel a bit longer than it really is.

The dark wood cabinet in front of the wallpapered wall has a lot of scratches on it. I’m considering stripping the dark stain and giving this old cabinet a facelift.

What do you think?

Paint the cabinet a light green or go with a more natural-looking wood tone. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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-Tiffani Michalenko

HSR Certified Home Stager & Expert eDesigner

Painted Cabinets

The overall aesthetic of my kitchen was mismatched and outdated. Since the cabinets and granite countertops are in great condition, we decided to paint the cabinets.

This is how I did it.

What You’ll Need

I used everything listed below plus some additional brushes I had and buckets to clean with.

Preparation

Step One:

I removed all of the doors and drawers from the kitchen. I took off the knobs, hinges, and clear sticker bumpers.

Step Two:

Once the hinges were removed, I used a Sharpie marker to write what number the cabinet was inside one hinge hole cutout. I then also labeled a piece of blue painter’s tape with the same number and stuck it on top of the number marked with Sharpie. I did this because when the paint was sprayed on, it covered up most of the labels on the painter’s tape. I was able to pull it off and see the numbers clearly for the installation.

I also made labels out of blue painter’s tape for each drawer.

Step Three:

I sanded the cabinet boxes, doors, and drawer fronts using 320-grit sandpaper wrapped on a sanding block.

I wiped everything down with a tack cloth and then using a paint rag, wiped with Liquid Sandpaper.

I then mixed the TSP All-Purpose Cleaner with warm water and wiped everything making sure to get any leftover sanding residue.

Be sure to wear heavy-duty protective gloves during this process!

Hot Tip: Use a hair dryer to heat any sticky residue and scrape it off with a palette knife or flathead screwdriver.

Step Four:

Prep your workspace. Place painter’s plastic down on the floors and on top of countertops to protect from paint spills or drops.

Using the Green Frog Tape, tape all areas where the cabinets meet the walls, floors, appliances, countertops… everywhere you don’t want paint. Be sure to tape two layers side by side. Doing so will make it so that the edge of your paint roller goes on the tape and not the wall.

I taped painter’s plastic on the interior of my cabinet boxes to protect them from unwanted paint splatter.

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Applying Primer

Step Five:

Cabinet Boxes

I painted two coats of Zinser BIN Primer on the cabinet boxes. The primer is very thin and smells awful. Make sure you ventilate your room as much as possible.

For the cabinet boxes, I cut in using the 2” flat brush and rolled on the paint everywhere else.

Door and Drawer Fronts

When I primed the doors and drawer fronts, I used the paint sprayer. It was much faster and only required one coat of Primer. The downside was that the paint sprayer used up a lot of Primer. I ended up going through an entire gallon.

I first painted the backs of the doors and drawers. If I made any mistakes or the paint dripped, it was on the back and less noticeable than on the front.

HOT TIP: Wear a properly fitted face mask, eye covering, and gloves when using primer.

I used the mini cone paint stands to prop the doors and drawers up on as they dried.

Once the backs were dry, I painted the fronts and sides and then let them dry.

HOT TIP: I learned that once dry, the Primer dries flaky on the painter’s plastic and painter’s tape. I had to use a lot of tack cloth to get the flakes off before I could paint with the cabinet paint. I probably should have removed the painter’s plastic and then prepped it again with fresh plastic and tape.

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Applying the Cabinet Paint

I chose the Nuvo Cabinet Paint because it is easy to work with plus the kit comes with everything you need to get started. Nuvo has several colors to pick from and I really liked that they included very detailed instructions.

I used the Nuvo Cabinet Paint on my bathroom vanities without the top coat that can be purchased separately and the paint has held up very well. I do plan to go back and put a top coat on them just to make sure the paint lasts even longer.

Step Six:

Cabinet Boxes

Using the same method as with the Pimer, I cut in with a 2” brush and rolled the paint on with the cabinet paint roller. I found the Nuvo Titanium White paint to be very thick but applied smoothly.

I didn’t take a picture of this step, but I used the drywall knife to avoid paint bleeding through the painter’s tape onto the flooring. I put the flat edge of the drywall knife on the floor up against the shoe molding and painted on top of the knife instead of painting directly onto the painter’s tape.

It took two coats of cabinet paint to fully cover the Primer. I repeated the painting process with one layer of the Clear Top Coat.

Drawers and Doors

I used one of my daughter’s toy bins that has wheels on the bottom to easily rotate the doors and drawers around while I painted them.

I started with the backs again. I first cut in with a brush and then rolled on the paint with the paint roller.

After the backs were dry, I repeated the process for the fronts.

I let all of the doors and drawers dry overnight and then repeated the process of applying the Clear Top Coat.

HOT TIP: Remove the painter’s tape while the paint is still a little bit wet. This will allow for cleaner edges.

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Putting It All Together

Step Seven:

Inspect your paint job to see if there is anywhere you need to touchup, then replace the clear bumper stickers on the backs of the doors and drawers.

Step Eight:

I enlisted the help of my husband to help reinstall the doors and drawers. We replaced the hinges with new soft-close hinges and hung the doors back up.

After the drawers were put back, we installed new knobs and then we admired all of the hard work that went into this transformation!

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I am so glad we decided to paint our cabinets! It was a labor of love and definitely took me longer than I anticipated. I think the most time-consuming part of this project was the prep work, but it was necessary to achieve the results I wanted. All in all, this project took me over two weeks to complete. I worked a little bit every day and did what I could while my kids were at school.

Now we have a fresh bright white kitchen that instantly brightened up the entire space!

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FREE download! Start planning your next home refresh with this Room Budget Calculator.

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-Tiffani Michalenko

HSR Certified Home Stager & Expert eDesigner

Pantry Refresh

Pantry Goes From Dysfunctional to Completely Organized

Holy pantry space! This oversized pantry recently got a facelift and I’m here to share with you how we did it. 

The Before

Disorganized and cluttered, things fell through the wire shelving. A very frustrating space that made me feel overwhelmed every time I walked in.

When my husband I bought our house we were shocked at the size of our new pantry. We’ve only ever had a small closet space to use. This pantry could easily fit bunk beds LOL! 

The drab basic builder-grade white wire shelving was over twelve years old, dirty, stained, and not functional for adequate food storage. The vertical posts made it challenging to organize food and the open shelving caused things to fall through the cracks all the time.

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What We Did

First, the wire shelving was torn out and the many, many holes left in the walls were patched. 

We painted a fresh coat of Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray SW7029 paint to the walls and I worked on the staining and adding a coat of Polyurethane to the wood shelves my husband cut and sanded. I used the Dark Walnut #2176 stain finish by Minwax.

The shelves vary in length according to the wall-length but are all right at 11” deep.

One by one we spaced out the brackets determining how much height we wanted between shelf levels and the shelving space came to life. We maximized every square inch in this space!

Once all the shelves were up, the room overall felt more open and spacious, but the dark wood tone absorbed much of the light so we decided to also update the semi-flush mount light.

Voila, instantly more light! 

The fun part began with a shopping trip to IKEA where I was able to source most of the storage bins. I found the clear bins on Amazon. You can download a free copy of all the products I used here.

I organized all the food and made my own vinyl labels with my Silhouette cutting machine.

You could certainly download free printable labels and print them on sticker paper or use a marker and handwrite them!

All Done

Everything now has a place and I couldn’t be happier channeling my inner KonMari!  

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What do you think about this Pantry Refresh?

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FREE download! Shop my favorite organizational products used to accomplish this Pantry Refresh.

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-Tiffani Michalenko

HSR Certified Home Stager & Expert eDesigner