When we moved into our property just over five years ago, one of the first things we did was rip up all of the carpets in the hallway and stairs. We discovered the most beautiful victorian tiles underneath, but have struggled to know what to do with them since. We initially tried cleaning them up, but it were struggling. So they were just sort of left while we focused on other areas of the house.

Stairs and Hallway Redecoration: Part 1

Time passed, as it does and we got marries, changed jobs and had a baby. The hallway still remained unfinished. It got to the point where I was so fed up with it feeling unfinished compared to the rest of the house.

So, we decided it was finally time to get on with redecorating the hallway.

We couldn’t decide on the colour at first. I wanted an emerald green, my husband wanted burgundy. I went to Wilko’s and chose a range of colours and we popped some paint samples on the wall, pictured below.

We gradually ruled out colours for being too dark, too bright and too similar to our bedroom. Our final decision was Jaded Teal which is the ‘T’ in the picture above. We worked out the coverage, bought to tins and got painting.

Colour Fail

While we absolutely loved this colour, it made our hallway very dark, much darker than it looks in the picture. Our original plan had been to carry on with it up the stairs, but that was now definitely out. Another option would be to half it and paint the top half white then add a dado rail.

Eventually, we decided there was no workaround that was going to fix it, so we decided to paint it a different colour. While we do still love this colour and would use it in a lighter room, it just didn’t work here.

We were gutted that all of our hard work would now go to waste and we’d wasted money too. But at the same time, we needed something we both liked and were happy with.

You can also see how uneven our wall are from these pictured! They actually look better now the paint has dried but it’s definitely one of the pitfalls of living in an older property.

Choosing a New Colour

While we still loved the idea of a bright bold colour, we decided our best bet was to go with the colour we already had in our living room and dining room, City Walk, which is a shade of grey. We also chose to only paint one of the walls in the hallway in this colour, keeping the other side white so it didn’t end up feeling dark again.

It took several coats of white paint to cover the Jade but this meant the grey went on very well and coverage was reasonable. We also felt happy taking the colour up the stairs.

We have also now made a start on painting the woodwork, bannister rails and some other areas that needed a lick of paint, such as our understairs cupboard (pictured below).

I am so glad to finally be getting on with this project, although it is currently on hold as we have a few weekends with other commitments.

We have also decided the Victorian tiles in our hallway are in such bad repair we will likely be carpeting over them. It is a real shame but realistically we don’t have the time or money to bring them back up scratch.