Our Hallway Makeover

If you’ve been reading The Mama Notes for a while you know we’ve slowly been renovating our 1970’s split-level home. And with each project we finish it feels more and more like us. While the hallway was no big task, the small changes I made created a large impact in this throughway upstairs that we are in constantly. I struggled for a while with what to do with the wall space but finally landed on adding a warm wood tone via framed black and white family photos. I worked with Artifact Uprising to bring this project to life and I’m so excited with how it turned out! 

You can see our bedroom reno here, bathroom #1, bathroom #2, Flora’s Nursery and our Ikea Billy bookcase DIY for the living room and our front door makeover!

To start…let’s look at the before. The walls remained unpainted since we moved in (so gross, I know!!!) the lighting fixtures appeared to be original to the 70’s/80’s I think (sadly I can’t find a photo before we swapped them out) and the wood baseboards instantly made the space feel dated. All of the doors are this awful stained orange wood. 

So I gave everything (walls, doors, trim) a fresh coat of Ultra Bright White – it works so well in our house to give a really fresh, crisp color and reflects the light so well. Changing the baseboards alone made such a big difference. Then we replaced the non-working closet door with a new simple door and I got a knob from Anthropologie to use. We also swapped the door knobs on all the doors. Such a tiny change that made a big difference in the overall look of the space. 

Changing out the lights to these modern brass globe lights from West Elm made a huge impact and they were under $200 for both! The hall sat this way for about a year…no art, no rug. I finally got it together and decided on uniform over-sized frames down the hall with candid family moments captured in black & white photographs. Warmth and texture came with this rug I scored on Amazon (many of you have asked about this other rug I previously had in the space, also from Amazon and held up really well in this highly trafficked area). It’s actually TOO SHORT – so I’m debating buying a second one to fill the space or start my rug search, yet again. I just really, really love the rich, berry tones in this rug for the space! 

I edited the family photos on my phone and then used Artifact Uprising’s easy app to place my order for the frames. I have so many family photos from over the years that I’ve wanted to print it was kind of overwhelming but I quickly decided I wanted candid moments vs. overly posed images. It’s why there aren’t any of the 4 of us (also because we have maybe 3 total!!). Making them black and white created a cohesive look despite all the different colors and lighting in the images and the oversized mats really makes the images stand out. I could not be happier with how they turned out!! Artifact Uprising is offering you 15% off your oder with the code TheMamaNotes :)