Our Hallway, Stairs & Landing Renovation: An Update So Far
I thought I'd put this blog post together to give you a bit of an update as to our progress with our hallway, stairs and landing renovation. We have made quite a bit of progress over the last few weeks, but there's still a lot to do and a lot of mess to make before we're ready to start painting the walls. But let me talk you through what we've done so far.
We have removed all of the old architraves and skirting boards and put new ones on. We then ripped up the carpet on the stairs, which was horrible and thin and we sanded down the stairs and, pretty much, all of the walls, other than the ceiling. The walls needed doing because the old owners did a really bad job of painting it. There are drips, splashes and brush marks all over the walls and the stairs were just as bad.
The gloss was old and rock hard. But what made it harder was that it had all been painted over with white emulsion paint. The top bits needed sanded out by hand, but the flat parts we sanded with the magic mouse. We also screwed down some squeaky steps so that we're ready for a carpet when we need one.
We have also replaced the doors. The living room didn't have one on it when we moved in, so that's been on for a little under a year now. But the downstairs toilet, under stairs cupboard, our bedroom and the guest room doors have not long been hung. I am yet to paint our bedroom door, but I am currently in the process of painting the downstairs toilet door and the guest bedroom door, which is exciting. When I can, I like to paint more than one at once.
We have also had a new front door fitted and coving has been added throughout downstairs. We won't be putting coving upstairs as it's not typically done, which is good because it saves us a job, haha. I have also been painting an undercoat on the skirting boards and architraves downstairs as it's bare wood.
We also undercoated the door frame downstairs where the under stairs cupboard is. The previous owners did a terrible job of adding a door, so we went out and bought a proper frame for it and a brand new door, which had to be painted as well.
Inside the under stairs cupboard, the walls are covered in woodchip wallpaper that we just cannot shift. We've soaked it several times in warm water, tried wallpaper remover and fabric softener and it just won't budge. So we've decided to sand back the wallpaper, taking all of the bobbly bits off, and we're going to line it with thick lining paper instead.
As it's an under stairs cupboard that no one is going to see, we didn't think it mattered too much. We also want to take off the old skirting boards and box the pipes in where the old radiator used to be (we moved it from the cupboard to the hallway). We will then just buy an inexpensive laminate floor to lay in there as well. We just want somewhere that's clean and that can be cleaned. That's all going to be forming part of our hallway renovation.
We then went upstairs and removed two door frames. One wasn't being used and the other one was cracked, so we couldn't have hung a new door on it if we wanted to. That didn't come out too easily, removing a chunk of the wall with it. So we had to add the new frame and then fill the gap that was left behind.
The other door frame was removed but we didn't replace it with another. Instead, we plastered it all up and will carrying the skirting board on along the wall. This will make it look more like an alcove rather than what used to be an old doorway. People will never know once it's all been sanded back and all painted the same colour.
The last thing we'll do is lay a floor and a carpet on the stairs. But we're not anywhere near that yet. We still have some cracks to chop out and fill and some more sanding and painting of the wood needs to be done as well. But that's it from me for now. I'll be sure to keep you updated on our progress along the way, so keep your eyes peeled for more if you're interested in seeing how we get on :)
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I hope you enjoyed this blog post? Let me know in the comments below whether you're undergoing your own house renovations and what you reckon to ours? I'll see you again very soon with a brand new blog post :)
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