Reclaiming my hall

A year or so ago I finally after many years of waiting I finally had my stairs and hallway re-carpeted, when we moved in there was a horrid green patterned running along the entrance hall, up the stairs and along the corridor – it was never to my taste and just didn’t match in with what we wanted but due to costs etc. it just stayed.

Since having this replaced with a lovely lighter striped carpet on the stairs and top corridor and then having the bottom replaced with tiles it has really opened up the space, made it brighter and something which I am happy to let people see.

I started with the hallway revamp but of course as always I only get so far before I am distracted and move onto something else.

I did manage to make an area for us all by upcycling some old crates and making a pretty and useful storage area for all our items which would otherwise be dumped onto a shelf.

That was about as far as I got with the hall make over and now the entrance hall is once again a dumping ground for the children’s bikes, hats, shoes and school bags.

I’ve been browsing ornaments and decorations to add to this shelving above so as to stop it becoming a dumping ground and I really like this sand art from Uncommongoods.

I plan to pull out the coat cupboard when its not so hot and sort through what fits, bag up the old ones for charity and hopefully half the contents as that cupboard is fit to explode, I will also do the same with the shoe cupboard.

Next I plan to add shelving to the bottom of the coat cupboard to house some of our shoes, the welly boots and boots which aren’t being used in Summer, this will free up some room in the shoe cupboard hopefully meaning I can get rid of the two baskets of shoes which are also dumped in the hall – just how we all have so many is beyond me but they are all used constantly.

The children’s bikes will be moved into a shed in the garden instead of sitting directly inside my front door and I want to add a rail for hanging the coats we use daily instead of having them hung over the banister. By moving the bikes it will open up the house a lot and mean I’ll not be banging my hips on them constantly and also mean I can add this awesome rug to the entrance hall because, well the kids would love it and it brings a fun element into an otherwise boring space.

Once these jobs are done it should, in theory be easier to keep this area clean and i can then move onto making the garden tidier, we have a rockery in the front garden but sadly all it houses at the moment is stinging nettles and weeds.

I will be getting the kids to help me out there soon to spruce it up, they love to dig so once I’ve removed the stinging nettles and weeds they can turn the soil for me in preparation for some flowers, I need to then tidy up the borders and cut back the trees and then we can begin planting flower beds and adding garden ornaments and accessories to make it finally look presentable once again.

Uncommongoods was founded in 1999 and headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, UncommonGoods is a privately-owned retailer that endeavors to feature unique jewellry designer décor tabletop items and handcrafted gifts created in harmony with the environment without harm to animals or people. They run all  operations out of the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal, where the lowest paid seasonal worker starts at 50% above the minimum wage. A third of their entire collection incorporates recycled and/or upcycled materials.

**Collaborative post**