LDH B&A

For those that don't speak my language, that is the "long dark hall" before and after. The LDH has kind of been a joke with DH & I. We found a house we thought had a ton of potential, but the one thing we really couldn't get our heads around was what to do with the LDH. It started in the kitchen and ran behind our dining room (partially), family room, staircase & foyer.

When we first looked at the house, it had no electricity. We entered through the back of the house, walking into the very dark kitchen, and encountered the hallway. The realtor, who thought we were nuts for looking at the place, said "wow, now that's a hall....." At the time, it had some atrocious red/gold wallpaper and filthy brown indoor/outdoor carpet. It seemed to go on forever. Oppresive was a good word for it. Below is a partial picture, I'm a good 3-4 feet into it. Sorry it's blurry, that was day one with my new camera, and I didn't have it set correctly.

The kitchen remodel lopped off 3' of the LDH, but you really can't tell in the after photos. We had it cut off at about where the vacuum cleaner is sitting. Bill thoroughly enjoyed peeling off the ugly wallpaper. Washing off the glue? Not so much...........

Post wallpaper, pre-glue removal...................

The pic's are a bit premature, the switchplates haven't been reinstalled, and the doors are all getting new handles (mainly to prevent John from locking himself into a room that we don't have a key for.......)

I love the light fixtures (of which there are two, but you can't see the closer one). That was actually a screw-up by the contractor. We told him to install them in the small hall off the garage, but he assumed we meant this one. After I couldn't figure out why he never installed them in the short hall, and couldn't find them anywhere, I finally noticed them here. Amazing, they look far better here than the $10 cheapies I bought at Lowe's! The Lowe's cheapies ended up in the short hall, and look great.

Looking into the kitchen & garage entry. Consider it a small preview......... Real kitchen/dining room B&A's coming soon.

The foyer had some amateurish sponge painting. Ugly. I don't mind nice sponge painting, but this didn't qualify.

Please excuse the construction dust that I have yet to clean off the steps. Furthermore, please really excuse the ugly red carpet. I really should have dealt with that when I ordered the bedroom carpet and Lowe's had a special. Why is hindsight always 20/20?

Looking into the LDH.

New doors. (And a huge thanks to Ashley, who has given me many photography tips, including the one that allowed me to take this picture and capture elements other than light coming thru doors....)