The Hallway Update

Bland to Beautiful! Japanese inspired hallway

Back story for my renovation:

Humble and ethical condo renovation in Vancouver

The Goal

• Make the hallway more interesting with trims and darker paint colour
• Use grandma’s door and lantern to make the space feel more Japanese and more me

Fortunately, my living space is away from the public hallway of the condo building. It provides great deal of sound separation.

Opening the front door, the first space is my 11 feet x 54 inch hallway without storage. It’s not wide enough to house a bench or storage unit length wise. Then there is a sharp right towards front closet.

My entire apartment walls were in Ralph Lauren “Riviera Terrace”

Very fitting, since my husband and I love Italy. It’s an lovely off white. You can enjoy the colour yellow without painting the wall yellow. It’s an happy and bright paint colour.

However, after 10 years I was little bit bored with it. It’s an amazing colour for our bed room and living room, but I wanted to play in the entrance hallway since the space isn’t visible from the living spaces.

The Inspirations

 

The Trims

I love the vibe of Studio McGee’s living room design. The grid design feels younger than your typical Parisian style applied moulding. I would have been happy with either design of the trims but since my goal was to introduce more Japanese vibe, I chose the grid style. Grids are common design move in Japan, in much smaller scale in Shoji sliding doors.

To achieve the grid trim design, I bought total of 2

Alexandria Moulding (10-Pack) 1/2-inch x 3 1/2-inch x 96-inch Modern MDF Primed Fibreboard Baseboard Moulding ValuPAK

so 20 baseboards.

I accidentally picked up 2 1/2 inch width on the first shopping run, so we just went with it. I actually wanted it wider though. First pack was enough to do the vertical trims, Second pack was bought later to fill the horizontal bits.

I cut the baseboards with this hand saw:

I did the math, and dry fitted the vertical trims with tapes first. Needed to adjust the positioning to line up with bulk head and etc. They are not all perfectly evenly spaced, but It’ll be impossible to tell if one square is 1/4 inch wider than the next. I didn’t care too much.

1. I measured the distance between each vertical trims.
2. Cut the horizontal trims in length, then labeled it so it’d be easier to fit them later.
3. First horizontal trim from the door was labeled ① then cut 3 more for section ① in the same length.
4. Measure and repeat the process 6 times.

I painted the trims first before I applied to the wall with carpenters glue and nails.

Nailing was done by my handy friend Pete. (I paid him by the hour)

Other than Pete nailing the trims, I did everything else myself while Pete was busy building me the fabulous cabinet featuring my grandma’s door!

Side note for the paint:

It’s a Benjamin Moore Desert Twilight in flat. Since I shopped at Home Depot a lot and I love their Behr Marquee paints, I asked to colour sample it from a Benjamin Moore swatch. First sample colour was more green, and then the second colour in a quart can was more brown. What I leaned is that when they sample the colour from the swatch, they don’t come out the same every time, unless they type in the exact recipe numbers.

Behr Marquee Marquee 939 mL Medium Base Matte Interior Paint with Primer

Behr Marquee Marquee 8 oz Deep Base Matte Interior Paint Sample with Primer

I needed 1 quart can and 2 sample sizes to complete the hallway paint job with trims.

It’s about $40 for the paint! not bad at all.

I chose the specific green colour because it could feel Japanese, it would go with the antique door colour, and it would go with the floor colour.

I could have chosen more trendy and dramatic deep green like Sherwin Williams’s “Foxhall Green” SW9184, but I thought for my windowless hallway, mid tone greyish green was more fitting, and more timeless.

More about the handmade cabinet

The goal of this hallway update is to design around the door I brought back from my grandma’s house in Japan.

I never noticed growing up, but the door is 5’4 tall, and it’s shorter than my husband’s height. Therefore, it wouldn’t be a good door. So I decided to use the door as a cabinet door.

Handy Pete made me the frame with Home Depot Lumber. The shelves inside is repurposed from my living room built in. Read about the built-in here:

The Built-in Update

The door is hang with hinges from Home Depot. and the closing mechanism is made by me using two magnets and glue.

I’m pretty sure this cabinet costed me around $250 with labor and material, which makes it the best $250 I spend in my life!! (+$200 on shipping the door from Japan)

The Cabinet is housing my entire handbag collection, 3 skateboards, fashion accessories, my grocery bags, and my DIY tool kit such as handsaw, hammers, nails, etc. It’s so functional!

The picture ledge is made with leftover baseboard, and the fabulous art is by Peter Taylor, a fantastic B.C artist.

Products used in the hallway:

Kartell Victoria chair
Kartell Jellies coat hangers
EQ3 basket

I didn’t buy anything new for this hallway update, except for the basket and felt succulent plant which is made by my neighbor. The chair used to be our dining chair, but we no longer have a dining table.