Ode to Cloud Dancer

I thought it was a joke when Pantone named "Cloud Dancer" the color of the year for 2026. White? Really? And I still think it's one of their weaker choices for lots of reasons. However, we recently embarked on two relatively quick touch-up projects that both required white paint (neither of them actually Cloud Dancer) so I guess maybe this really is white's year to shine for us.

Our first project was tackling the upstairs hallway. We painted it back in 2010 by ourselves and really struggled with how to paint the section that extends over the stairs using rollers on wands. Because we couldn't get up close to edge the line where the ceiling met the wall, we just painted everything a single color/finish. Did I record what that color/finish was? No, I did not. However, while I don't remember the exact finish (it was probably matte or satin), I do remember the color. Because there was none. Those were the days when we thought "white" meant "untinted" and so the white was VERY bright. The colors in the cans are not meant to be used as-is. And so that was how it remained for, well, 15 years.

Being the hallway, the walls and doorframes took a lot of abuse, plus we had to screw gates into the walls in order to babyproof--hardware that we left up even though the gates had long since been removed. Some of the paint had peeled off when we removed the paint sample stickers we had put there for one of the kid bedrooms (the light being more even than it was in the green room). Plus a new smoke detector and new doorknobs meant that we had to paint to new lines. Even if I had been happy with the original white walls, it was time for a refresh:

(Note that photographing these and getting the white-balance correct due to the light and shadows was next to impossible, so squint really hard and pretend that all of these pictures show the exact same color paint, because they should.)

This time, we hired professionals. It was a quick job for them to patch up the holes from the screws in the walls, caulk around that light fixture on the ceiling that always looked like it was not quite attached, and actually paint things in different finishes. This time, of course, we tinted the paints. We went with Benjamin Moore's Simply White in eggshell for the walls and semi-gloss for the trim and doors, plus standard ceiling paint. Simply White was what we had used in the formerly green nursery and we liked the way it had come out.

Obviously the pro team had fancy ladder and things to help them get to all the corners we couldn't. And much better tarping!

Here's the newly refinished corner where we had previously had screw-holes from our baby gate. Also gone were all the scuffs and scratches.

The ceiling light, freshly caulked. It's hard to tell but the white of the ceiling is indeed a slightly different color from the walls, which is how it's normally supposed to work.

And the hallway itself, with glossy, bright white doors and trim and our new doorknob hardware to match (almost) the rest of the house.

It was a subtle change that probably only I cared about, but it brought me joy (or at least reduced my annoyance) and was well worth the price and brief inconvenience.

That was project one. Then a few months later, we tackled another white space that was past due for an upgrade. The downstairs hallway!

We'd already done one sort-of upgrade, also in 2010, replacing the rug once and adding some wall hanging. First we'd done a clothesline of pictures and then we eventually put up framed art. But we never touched the walls, and so they were the original white we moved in to. Because it was painted over knotty pine, we could see knots that came through the paint, and had never even switched out the sad painted-white-to-match switch plates:

I had already removed the pictures from the walls and the sad switch plate on this side, but you can see the carpet (new in 2010) that was also due for an upgrade:

And here:

Nothing really wrong with it except our lives did not mesh well with such a light colored rug, plus the rug was looped and the cats were rough on it. What absolutely prompted the need for this project was this (also visible in the first hallway picture above, if you knew what to look for):

Can you see it? This time, the white balance isn't playing tricks on you. The doors were a completely different color than the walls. The door upgrade we made in 2024 while the addition was being built meant that the doors and the doorframes were the new, glossy white of our primary suite, while the walls were who-knows-what. It drove me crazy for almost 18 months. If this picture doesn't make it obvious, take a look at the next one (fast-forwarded to painting in-progress):

There was something else too. We had to upgrade our Nest thermostat due to the old one no longer being supported. And of course it wasn't the same footprint (wallprint?) and left us with an unpainted panel and a hole:

Some woodworking was required. D drilled out the hole to make it more even:

Then wedged in a wood circle that matched the dimensions.

There was other woodworking to be done. We had inherited a house that evidently used to have a basement door, which the previous owners had removed (which makes total sense--there's nowhere for that door to swing). But the hardware was still evidence on the trim:

D used his CNC machine to machine-cut out a plate to cover the strike plate:

The other side of the former door had carve-outs too:

 

Woodworking done, then it became my turn. The corners and wall edges, plus a few random panel edges needed caulking, plus of course I had to spackle the new wood inserts to blend them into the wall.

And then it was time to paint. Did we use the same color we had for the upstairs hallway? Of course not! That would have been too easy. The doors and trim had already been painted Benjamin Moore's Chantilly Lace, the white we had chosen for the addition, so we were committed. As I noted in previous posts, it turned out to be a tad too white for our taste, but we were not about to repaint all the doors in the hallway to adjust it, so Chantilly Lace it was. Eggshell for the walls, semi-gloss for the trim. We didn't prime first in most places, but we did prime over the new wood inserts and also on all the knots that showed through the previous layer of paint. They may make their way to the surface again eventually, because we didn't purchase an alcohol-based primer, but at least then we can take action again and have the right paint color for on top of it. We didn't paint the ceiling because it was in good shape, so I guess potentially that could be something we have to deal with later also.

We also bought a new rug, moved where we were mounting our Dyson hand vacuum, and put in brushed nickel light switch plates, to make the whole space look nicer. The rug is Ballard Designs' Antelope runner in blue. Hopefully easier to hide inevitable stains...

Basement door? Nope! Just regular wall trim:

The hallway isn't a place we spend a lot of time in, but it is a place we pass through often. I'm happy that it looks so much more polished and thoughtful now. Whites for the win (though we are evidently never going to have a single white base color in this house...)

A Plan and a Few Random Things

We caved in and called professional help from the Container Store for organizational advice. While we work back and forth with her on some ideas, we realized that our number one plan should be thinning out our own unneeded stuff and giving up that space to the kids. We have so many bookshelves and cabinets already that will work fairly well for hiding toys, but they are full of old binders, magazines, and other things. Between the added attic storage in our garage for things we don't want to throw out but rarely (if ever) need and a new sense of having to throw out things we will truly never need (is there really any reason to keep my notes from my high school AP Calculus class when it all looks like gibberish now? probably not) might give us at least some solution at no cost. Then at least we won't need quite so many additional shelves and drawers. So we will see how that goes.

In the meantime, we have made a few small adjustments to our home decor that I'm excited to share. After looking online for a Turkish lamp, I found this beauty at a local store and knew the price was not too high, so it came home with me immediately. I've wanted one for ages but just did not have a good place for it. Good thing we have a brand new room!

Here's some more eye candy of my lamp. It has a warm LED bulb in it so the glass stays cool to the touch and isn't using much energy. I just want to figure out a way to better hide the switch, which is down about one foot along the power cord. 

Isn't it gorgeous? At least now I have a nightlight for when I need to come downstairs with a screaming baby at 3am...(silver lining?):

We also changed up our hallway. It used to have pictures strung up with yarn to minimize holes in the wall (we don't have the white paint so we wouldn't be able to fill and touch up if necessary). Here's the before picture, from this post - which totally coincidentally was exactly 6 years ago from today.

Unlike what I said in my post about refreshing the pictures on a regular basis, they were the exact same last week as they were 6 years ago. So much for that.

We inherited a beautiful picture that a family member painted (two actually - one is waiting to be framed) and decided the hallway was a perfect place. I think it makes the place feel a little more grown up than the sort of "just out of college" look of the unframed pictures hanging on yarn, don't you?

And not a "decor" update exactly but this Thanksgiving we had a roaring fire in the fire place thanks to our old oak tree. It is aged and dry and we have lots of it for the winter. Gone but not forgotten:

Giving the Hallway Some Character

So I was finally sick enough of our rather soulless hallway to start shopping for a new rug and implement our wall hanging idea. Here is a reminder of what our hallway looked like before:

Pretty blah. And fairly dangerous since that runner was actually two rugs, so there was a spot in the middle that could trip someone.

Now, it's not so dramatic as some of our changes, but I like what we did this week to improve things. First, a new rug from Overstock.com for under $100 plus, like, $10 for the rug pad:

Much prettier and much less treacherous than before. Also the cat really seems to like it and spends a lot of his time rolling around on it. Bonus!

Second, we figured out a way to hang pictures without doing much damage to the walls. D tapped little nails into the corners and we strung various bits of yarn along them to hold pictures. This way, D can display his hobby: photography, and I can (sort of) display mine: knitting. Also I get a few photos too. The plan is to change these out whenever we want, including for Christmas cards next month or other holiday themes throughout the year:

Hopefully the nails will stay put!

So we're still missing a little table, but at least the hallway has more personality. We decided that we want a small corner quarter circle or triangle table but I'm having trouble finding the exact words to search for one online. The best I could find are on Amazon, but they seem too expensive for what is probably pretty shoddy quality:

Liso

Home Star

Suggestions, as always, are encouraged. (Please? Pretty please?)

the house tour continued: dining room, kitchen, and hallway

Continuing along on our before-and-after tour, here's the dining room, as seen from the kitchen, right when we moved in. Basically, an ugly old ceiling lamp and an empty room:

And now the after. The kitchen/dining room area is the only area where we liked the previous owners' choice in paint color (which is a problem, actually, since I can't seem to find extra in the garage and there are some spots that could really use a touch-up). So instead we decided to tamper with the light fixtures and buy lots of pretty furniture. You can't see it in these picture, but we also hung some lovely Roman shades (but you can see them here).

Nothing really significant needs doing in the dining room. We are going to hang one pair of photos that needs special mat board but those will be on the wall to the left that you can't see from this angle anyway. The wine rack, as much as I love it, has to get hidden in the basement eventually, because we just read that wine needs a much more constant temperature than we keep our house, so we are basically ruining our wine. Down to the consistently cool basement it goes...

The next two pictures, taken this week, are both sort of "befores" because we haven't actually done anything to the rooms since we moved in. First, the kitchen, which was one of the reasons we fell in love with the house to begin with. Not much needs doing here. Maybe one day we will replace the cheap vinyl floor with something to match the level of the super nice cabinetry and appliances.

Next, as a lead-in to the guest room, office, and bathroom featured in the next post, here is the main floor hallway:

It's kinda awful. We like the white painted knotty pine and so are very reluctant to create any holes in the wall to hang pictures. We'd really like to find a way to hang them without hardware. Some sort of wire with clips, like this system (sold online as a curtain rod but also marketed in stores as a way to hang pictures). But that still requires us to screw the lines into the wall. So any suggestions on how to put up pictures without damaging the walls?

Second, we want to buy a really really skinny table for the far end of the hallway (the end with the red dust buster and the cat). Ikea, as usual, sells almost, but not quite, what we want:

It's skinny and thanks to the fact that it has no back legs, is mounted flush to the wall to make it even skinnier. But it's a little cheap and plasticky. So we want basically this, done well.

And finally a new floor runner is a must. You can't tell from the picture but this is actually two rugs overlapping and it's annoying looking and easy to trip on.

So the list:

• Hang pictures, somehow (suggestions please!)
• Find a skinny table
• Find a new rug

Next time, we'll finish off the first floor.

The Hallway!

It's about time to post pictures of our finished hallway. Today we finally touched up a few spots and screwed on an air conditioner intake vent but other than that, it's been done for a while.

You may remember that it started out entirely yellow, with cheapo light fixtures and separating drywall. Here's a picture of the corner between the bathroom and master bedroom. You can see the dark lines where the walls are separating.

So we spent one whole evening plastering up the drywall where we could reach it and another evening sanding and wiping the dust. We learned that you are supposed to prime over plaster to make the surface look the same as the wall, so even though we didn't prime everywhere, we did put it on over the edges we fixed. Here's the wall going down the stairs. You can (sort of) see the white along the edges.

We removed the fixtures to be able to paint the edges. We were planning to replace this directional light that shines down the stairs, but it looked complicated and is not in a standard electrical box, so we put it back when we finished. We did replace the little gold bubble light behind it though.

Because we were painting edges high up on the stairwell ceiling that we couldn't reach, we bought a wide variety of tools from Home Depot. We learned, after searching a few stores, that corner edging rollers are made from super cheap foam and padding and that high quality ones simply are not available. Surprisingly though, they did a better job than we expected.

 

You can see the gray we painted on the lower half of the hallway, as well as the Ikea coat hangers I mentioned here and the matching brushed nickel switch plates.

We ended up replacing all of the hardware that held on our handrail, since the old ones were in a dingy rusted brass and we went with nickel for everything else. We also added two more, so that the handrail is more secure.

And even though the color is all strange and you can't really tell that it's white, here's the upstairs view. You can see the new light, new thermostat, and (if you squint a little) our new door knobs. In keeping with my apparent obsession with replacing random brass-colored hardware with nickel, we replaced all our door knobs too (which ended up being quite a project, since the new ones didn't fit neatly into the holes left by the old ones).

We managed to hang a few pictures but haven't yet figured out what's going upstairs. We know we want to hang a lot though, because white really isn't our thing and it looks pretty sterile right now. Hopefully lots of colorful paintings and photographs will solve that problem.

Today we also tried to fill in our sparse lawn with more grass seed and spent the afternoon aerating and seeding. I have some before pictures but I'll wait to post them until I have (I hope!) some nice "after" ones too. We also set an ambitious plan for painting the master bedroom and should be done with that by next weekend.