"Craptacular" Hallway Needs Some Tender Loving Car Hey guys, I've just done an extensive amount of painting / redecorating on my (once extremely terrible, but oh so cheap) rental apartment. The next challenge is the shared hallway. I've just given it a touch up coat of white paint, but am looking for some design suggestions or tricks to make it a bit more bearable. I'm going to clean the floors as best I can, and maybe clean the street level door with some touch up paint, but I'm looking for the force multiplier in making it less "sketchy looking". Should I add some colour? Is there some inexpensive way of doing this (I don't want to put expensive painting out there as strangers pass through all the time.) Should I try to do something to the floors other than clean them? It's a rental, so I don't want to invest a lot of money. I know it's gross, but any tips would be great =) Thanks! Adam ( photo / image / picture from adambl11's Garden )
Adam shouldn't the landlord pay for any redecoration of the public stairway? Over here in the UK if the landlord won't pay out then all the residents of the flats club together to pay for the work needing done.
Yep, and yep =) Unfortunately, it's a bit of a slum (but extremely friendly) landlord. Rather than argue, I thought I'd take it into my own hands as much as I could without going overboard. (I'm paying about 40% less than I should be for the size and location of my rental, so I'm willing to eat some costs and put in labour.)
If you get traffic that might mess the walls up, I'd keep the white because it's easy to slap another coat on when needed. Those stair fronts would get dirty pretty quick in white. Maybe paint a contrasting color on the stair fronts and trim? Could you pull a tan color from the floor for the stair fronts?
I would use google images and type in painted stairs. You could see what others have done and it might give you some visual inspirations. I also thought of a smaller part of the wall with some quality graffiti/modern art painted on the wall with a frame hung around it. Frames are often cheap to make or pick up second hand. Even if the frame disappeared the painting would stay. Better yet paint the frame too.
I think you have a great idea. I hope all the other tenants will help or at least not deface it once you put the effort into the hall. I agree...cheap...but don't make it a solid color. Use a base coat of one color and a second coat of a very slightly different color and "sponge" that paint over the base once the base is dry. this will help mask scuff marks, dirt from hands at the hand level, wall imperfections, etc. For the floor, start with a bucket of water and ammonia then scrub with a scrub brush to see what the real floor looks like. There may not be much you can do with that. Floor coverings or fixes are expensive. This floor just looks very grungy and dirty.
