Transforming Transition Spaces
When we started our home renovation in 2022, updating the functional and living spaces was the first priority. The wallpaper in the hall seems a lot less important when you don’t have a functioning shower for a family of six. However, once we had both full bathrooms finished and our main living spaces refreshed (read, free of 50 year old carpeting), my eyes kept being drawn to the hallways. There is a small hall space outside our bedroom and a main hall in the heart of the house that connects kids’ bedrooms to the main living spaces. Like flyover states, halls can be easily passed over without notice or with care and appreciation they can be bright spots that tie the home together. But life is busy and exhausting, so these hallways remained untouched until a lack of supervision combined with nervous energy (more on the later) became the impetus for change.
Peel and Stick Wallpaper: Trial and Error
Initially, I decided to turn over the small space outside of our bedroom. Matt was going to be out of town for the night, so I was going to have two days to focus on this space. Originally our bedroom was a garage and this was the small mudroom. I removed the door to the kitchen, it was quirky with a window in it and closed in the space. I decided to do just do one accent wall with floral wallpaper and paint the rest of the space with the neutral SW Agreeable Gray that we used throughout the house. The once snot green door became SW Iron Ore and the trim, also snot green, was painted SW Pure White.
I chose a peel and stick wallpaper that I thought would tie together the color palette that we used throughout the house. While it was easy to use, a few months later, I learned that it was not really designed to stay stuck. Peel and stick is apparently meant to be used in apartments and be removable. We are hoping to die in this house so I really wanted this to last. I ended up having to adhere it to the wall with wallpaper glue after it started to separate.
I still loved the wallpaper pattern though, so when I decided to tackle the main hall, I used a gorilla glue wall spray in combination with the peel and stick wallpaper and so far it has stayed in place. First I hung the wallpaper in place and then pulled it back a bit at a time to spray the wall with the glue and permanently adhere it. But before wallpapering and painting, I had to remove the old wallpaper, which revealed an even older wallpaper underneath. On the wall that I repapered, I took it down to the plaster, but on the other walls I ended up just painting over the 1950s paper. It was so thick and well adhered to the plaster that it seemed likely it wouldn’t go anywhere if I just painted over it. Plus the plaster underneath was not nearly as smooth and I really didn’t feel like mudding and sanding. The jury is still out on whether or not that was a good gamble. In the interest of saving some dollars and using paint that I already owned, I pulled out the Sherwin-Williams 150% iron ore leftover from our exterior shutters. It was semi gloss instead of the satin sheen we used on the other walls through the house. After painting the wall, I realized the higher sheen brought out all of the imperfections when painting over a textured wallpaper. So I went and purchased a gallon of satin sheen Sherwin-Williams Iron Ore 150% for the second coat.
Channeling Brokenness into Creativity
I wish I could say I was motivated to start these projects two years into our home renovation as the result of magical Pinterest pixie dust, but life’s not that clean. When I married Matt four years ago after a painful divorce and annulment, I had to be honest with him and myself about the anxiety that him traveling out of town for work would induce. He has been so understanding and limits his overnights out of town to an absolute minimum. His unwavering kindness and patience regarding ongoing effects of my past relationship trauma is unparalleled. Having experienced infidelity in my first marriage has continued to have an impact on my physical and emotional responses to certain scenarios like out of town trips. Accepting that a part of me is still broken and may always be has been hard especially when it feels like a good man is “paying the price” for another’s choices. But channeling the nervous energy that starts coursing through when Matt had to be away into something creative has a way of turning something painful into something fruitful even if it originates from a broken place. That perspective and the nature of an old house helps relieve me of my perfectionistic tendencies when approaching these projects.
Peeling back layers of wallpaper, discovering oddities, and getting to add my own touches to our home helps me accept that imperfections and idiosyncrasies can be beautiful. Gold accents are my favorite. I incorporated three triple coat hangers into the space outside of our room where I hang our collection of aprons and our bag of bags (IYKYK). When Matt got home he replaced the main hall light for me. I also used hammered gold spray paint to refinish the light switch covers. All of our switches are biscuit instead of white. Changing them to white to match the trim, would have looked odd with the off white switches and outlets. Since I didn’t want to have to change out all of the outlets and switches, instead I opted to go with a gold accent for the switch plates. This was a fun accent that didn’t draw attention to the off white. I then used a non-textured pure gold to freshen up the brass door knobs. Perhaps my favorite part of the project was hanging up the family photos from our wedding and realizing that floral colors were a perfect match.
