The {Hallway Bookcase} Project

This project took us over three years to complete from start to finish! The work itself was pretty easy, life just got busy and we only worked on it in our free time… which with four kids and two full time jobs between Chris and I, “Free time” is rare in this household! But the end result was so worth the wait!

When we designed our house I put nooks all over just to add some dimension and character to the home. We built really “cost efficient” which translates to a perfectly rectangular exterior and I didn’t want it to be so boring/plain on the inside – so random interior nooks was my fix for that. This particular space is in our upper level hallway and served as a catch-all storage, play kitchen area when the kids were little, and dust-bunny collector for a year before we finally installed lower cabinets. We used the same contractor to order and install the lowers cabinets as in the kitchen and at the end of the hallway. At that time I didn’t really have a design in mind, I just desperately wanted storage. The hallway remained in this state for another year or so while we worked up a design (and saved up some money for the project!).

Before picture of the space (after we had the lower cabinets installed)

| THE DESIGN |

The design itself was pretty simple (and drawn in excel as this was before I got fancy with a design program!). Chris and I both envisioned a bookcase and I wanted to have some additional storage for holiday platers/bowls and misc kitchen items that I didn’t use year-round. We had so many books still in boxes from when we moved so I wanted most the space for book storage. Also, when we built the house, I had envisioned it all being a built-in desk/bookcase combo so I had the electrician run wire for lights to install at a later date – so we had the electrical ready to go for some fun lights.

| THE EXECUTION |

Once I drew up the design that fit our needs, Chris and I slightly disagreed on the color pallet. I wanted white and Chris wanted something other than white – haha! Then randomly, Lowes was having a sale on cabinets and we purchased these gray in-stock cabinets for the uppers. The detail on them reminded me of the detail on our kitchen island cabinets and the gray was neutral enough that I could live with it not being white! Chris installed them and I instantly hated the contrast of the wall color and the cabinet color – they were too similar and just looked miss-matched. Unfortunately, re-painting the walls was not an option (since it would require repainting practically the entire upstairs as we have a very open floor plan). So we tabled the color-convo for another couple of months while we worked on the rest.

Chris built a box out of MDF to go above the upper cabinets and create a base for the sconces. Shiplap went up next … because I can’t not do a project without shiplap! Haha! But we hung it vertically this time to give it a little modern flair. He then built some floating shelves and covered them with maple. To finish the shelves, I first used a pre-stained, then did a whitewash (to remove any of the yellow/red in the wood), then used a mixture of Weathered Oak and Provincial for the color and finally a couple coats of satin polyurethane to seal them (and making future dusting easier!).

While Chris worked on the trim work (he created custom molding for the upper portion to mimic the upper cabinets), I installed some board-and-batten on the opposite wall. I kept it the same height as the dinning room (since both walls are visible from the entry/living room). And painted it white to match as well.

My helper while spraying the wall treatment

When Chris finished doing all the trim work, I put a coat of extreme bond primer on the upper cabinets and primed the shiplap. I still wasn’t sold on doing a “color” before priming, but once the primer was on I caved and realized if Chris wanted a color this would be the place to compromise (haha, aka: the bookcase that isn’t very visible unless you are walking down the hall!).

We went with SW Black Fox. It took three coats with the sprayer to get it done and I’ll be honest: I wasn’t in love with it at first. The color is so much more brown then the paint swatch – I was expecting BLACK but Chris liked it so I kept on going. Once the plastic & tape was off the color grew on me. It had a nice moody vibe to it.

I kept the lower cabinets white for two reasons: (1) I haven’t had a ton of luck with refinishing cabinets and not scratching paint off (especially with going from white to DARK) so I didn’t want to deal with touching paint up for the rest of my life… also since most the items stored in these cabinets are kids games/craft supplies it seemed like a no-brainer… because we all know the kids will not be careful while getting into the cabinets! and (2) I was hoping the white board and batten on the opposite wall would give it some kind of symmetry when you walk down the hall??? Oooorrrrrr maybe I just like white… haha, I don’t know, but it made sense in my head!

Once the painting was done it was time for finishing touches. I decided to do a gallery wall above the board-and-batten and found some great square frames form Home Goods (I linked below a similar option from Amazon). Then I decided it needed wall sconces so I hung some light fixtures on the wall to anchor the frames. I just put battery-powered puck lights in those lights (one day we might run wiring for them – but for now, this worked). Links for those lights are below too!

The Hardware on the cabinets is some of my favorite – especially the lower cabinet cup pulls. I love how adding these took away any “kitchen cabinet” vibe and gave it a unique piece of furniture feel. For the upper cabinets I went with really long pulls to compliment the wall scones.

For the bookcase sconces I searched forever before finally deciding on these art sconces from Ballard Design (linked below). They were actually the first thing I settled on while designing the space. There was a slight gulp in price, but they were worth every penny in my opinion. I am all for spending money on high quality items that [typically] never get replaced in a home. I like them so much I think I’ll be purchasing another set for our entry way… but that is another project for another time.

Then finally the exciting part: I got all five boxes of books out of storage! I LOVE books and was so pumped to finally have them unpacked (haha, five years later!). Going through each box was like unpacking memories – And like the mild-OCD-nerd I can be, I sorted them by genre and author and put each one in it’s new home!

Once the lights, hardware, books, and accessories were up it was time for the reveal photos (just in time for my fall decorations!).

| THE REVEAL |

I could not be happier with this portion of our home. (I mean I still have projects for it… like shiplap on the ceiling and maybe some new lights to replace the can lights… but I love this space right now!) It makes me so happy walking down the hall and just really warms up the space! Three years into it, and definitely worth the wait!

Another project completed at the Kottong Homestead! Cannot wait to tackle the next one!! Below are links to most everything I used in the space! If you have questions/comments you can find me on Instagram @mkdecorating