hallway upgrade, part 1

Well, I was going to leave this project a secret on the blog and unveil it all at once so I could play this off as a simple project and you could all be impressed with my handyman skills... however, my cover was already blown to the primary reader of this blog (hi mom), so I figured I might as well clue the rest of you in to what I am up to around the house.

I have wanted to upgrade the front hall, pictured here on the day we closed, before any cleaning or painting occurred, since we moved in. 

I had toyed around with shelves for pictures or baskets full of mittens, a large gallery wall, or strips of hooks for hanging coats. Then I started to run across some board and batten style projects on pinterest and DIY blogs, and was quickly sold on that look for the hall. And to make it even better, I could combine it with my first ideas, and add hooks and a shelf (still undecided about the shelf though). I finally settled on this as my inspiration pic, after also considering this and this.

The first step then, was to remove the trim and baseboard. Actually before that, I had to decide if I wanted to keep the current trim and baseboard in place. After comparing my inspiration pics (one of which removes the trim, the other two keep the trim), I decided it had to go. In it's place I used a plain 1 x 6- an added bonus is that on the other side of the hall is only a plain board as well, so now the hall will have matching baseboards :) I also decided that the 1 x3s that currently frame the doorway, and the front door, would be the perfect "ends" to my board and batten wall, and that I needn't frame it out any further.

So, on to removing the boards. This I did as soon as I got home from work one day, before David even got back- he came home to loose baseboards strewn about the hall and me furiously working to get the last of the trim off. I think he was surprised. First, I scored the trim and baseboard where it meets the wall with a utility knife, to break up the caulk and paint that was there. Super simple. Then I took a putty-scraper and gently stuck it between the baseboard (or trim) and the wall where there was already a larger gap (perhaps thanks to our uneven walls?) and started to pry apart. At this point I knew I would not be reusing either piece, so I was not too concerned about damaging the wood, however I did want to be careful to not damage the plaster wall.

Once I had both pieces removed- maybe a 10 minute job- I was a little bummed to see that the previous builder had put zero effort into making the seem between the wall and the door trim look nice, besides of course slapping that quarter round trim over it (see pictures above and below). Sidenote- that appears to be a common theme in our apartment- when you don't want to take the time to mud, patch, caulk something, just slap a piece of wood over it.  

 

I was also bummed, to see that there was one spot where the plaster was in pretty rough shape.

Neither of these were big problems, just a little bump in the road, and probably should have been anticipated. I got out my plaster, and got to work mudding up the hall.

I spent maybe 40 minutes combined, mudding, scraping, sanding, and then doing the process all over. And I think I did a pretty good job- I am excited to see what the corner where the wall meets the door frame looks like once it is caulked and painted. I anticipate being so happy with the results that I run around the rest of the apartment with the caulk and wood filler and fill in all the little cracks that no one bothered to fill in the first time.

Up next: measuring, a trip to home depot, and installing the wood!