VirgilCarter, This is an off-topic comment on how terms vary from place to place: What you're calling a shotgun house has another name in this area: We call it a dog-trot because a dog could trot through the two portions of the house, and middle-class farmers -- like my family -- built them. I knew of some when I was a kid (before everyone had air conditioning), but to the best of my knowledge the dog-trots have all been filled in now. They're a throwback to another era. What WE call a shotgun house is a tiny, three-room house, probably located in what we call "Mill Hill", a village of tiny houses built by the textile mills. Back in the days before minimum wage, the mill provided free housing to all its workers, and the "Mill Hill" was close enough that workers could walk to work /return home for lunch. Workers who put in X number of years received a pension and had their house free 'til the day they died. Wages were very low, but the workers didn't have many expenses either -- they had their houses, they didn't get bills for their utilities, and they didn't need to own a car . . . on the other hand, workers were essentially "trapped" by the mill. With no way to save, who could afford to walk away from the mill job? The only people who could realistically leave were men who joined the military. This system ended when minimum wage was instituted; the mill couldn't provide the houses AND a decent wage. Okay, I'm definitely off topic . . . What we call a shotgun house is probably about 600 square feet. From a small front porch, you'd enter the living room. A door would open directly to the only bedroom. On one side of the bedroom there'd be a staircase to an attic bedroom (shared by all the kids) and a tiny bath under the stairs. Another door would open directly to the eat-in kitchen. There'd be both a front and a back porch. No hallways whatsoever. All rooms had windows on both sides, which provided good breezes (this is the South). Today those old houses are snapped up /rennovated by people who rent them through HUD or other low-income rental programs. Few people would choose to live in these houses.

my sil has a rather long hallway and she took an assortmant of old family pictures and then recent family pictures done in black & white or sepia tones to match the old photos and framed them and hung them all down the hallway. i always enjoy looking at them and with todays technology it is so easy to take color photos and print them as b&w or sepia. actually my dd & ds each gave us pictures of themselves as toddlers with my dh and i that were oldened and framed; we did another of our youngest and are going to do a wall with them and other pcs of art in black, browns and goldish hues over a black piano that has two handmade lights from Spain that will match with all of the above colors. I think something in your hall along those lines would look pretty cool, too. Also agree with the lighting idea.

Trees! That would be fun. I had been thinking of a spot to stick up that Cole & Son "Woods" paper, but a smaller pattern might work better with so many doors. And grasscloth. I had looked into it for my entry hall and living room and elsewhere (perfect cover for 50s paneling, right?) and was under the impression that it just wasn't durable enough. I'd love to be wrong. Or find a good faux grasscloth. WHERE does one go to look at wallpaper in person these days? Seriously, are there any more wallpaper stores? You all have not made this easier at all by giving me so many options I hadn't considered! So thanks! :) Do we all agree that the can lights must go, or is replacing them with ones that actually illuminate good enough? With the furnace intake and an attic access panel and four of the recessed lights, I think that the ceiling is sort of busy and making the light fixtures more substantial might help distract from that. Really, this hall isn't awful. I'm putting off the rest of the house because this is actually manageable. Actually I was planning on doing the entry hall which is well-lit and also brown and thought I needed to carry the treatment into this hall which branches off from it but there is a door. I don't have to match! Gee. I need to focus. :)

You did good! Now, lets talk about sparkly chandeliers that will you will see the reflection from the bottom of the stairs .... :)