Eld: first of all, thank you so much for your thoughtful suggestions! You are really educating me here. It never occurred to me that anything other than white would be the solution to a dingy looking area. But what you said makes perfect sense. Funnily enough, I was actually going to use Light Navajo White, because that is what I just used in my kitchen. Because my house is so small, I really want to use the same colors and materials throughout everything except two bedrooms and the bathrooms. So same flooring, paint colors, etc. in the library, LR, eat-in kitchen, and hallway. I thought it would help the visual flow of the space and unify it, while at the same time making it look and feel bigger. The light navajo white says it has a hint of brown. It is definitely not a super white white. Do you think it would work in the hallway? Also, Eld, yes, the door on the right in the picture is the back door of the house. It's actually located about in the middle of the length of the house. The hallway, if you measure starting at the Sterilite drawers on the left, is just over 16' long. There are three other doors off it besides the back door. The main bathroom is just before the laundry on the left, my room is on the left just after the laundry, and Joy's room is at the very end. I completely agree that better lighting would make a huge difference! Murraysmom, thanks for sharing! I love water colors! Your little hallway sounds peaceful, with the softness of a light green and the painting. I don't know if you've seen any of cpartist's colored pencil art--she posts on the kitchen forum and sometimes here as well, but her drawings are so gorgeous! She is to drawing what Shades is to glass mosaics. My dream wall would have a large cpartist work of flowers in a vase hanging up and Shades' glass lizard climbing up the wall! Eld, hahaha! Every time I write your name, my stupid phone changes it to either "Elf" or "Elderly!" If I missed any when I proofread, my apologies in advance, lol!! :-) Chris, if that mural is to cover up a "design mistake," then I say Praise the Lord for design mistakes! My comments are glowing because I truly love your art!! And I'm so glad you have this "therapy" to work on while you're caring for Joe in the sunset of his life. You are one strong woman, and I am so inspired by you. :-) If I get really industrious in the next few days, haha, I'll post a floor plan of my house. But I'd love to hear more stories about all your hallways or other awkward spaces you have or want to decorate! :-)

Bruce - The main stairs were in the kitchen. It was a galley style and the stairs ran to the middle of the basement originally. They took that space to make a larger kitchen and built the stairs in the original dining room. There is a small 'en-suite' bathroom attached to the master bedroom. I didn't originally draw it on the rough sketch. Benjesbride - I'm planning on selling in a few years. I was thinking of stealing some space from the kitchen to put a small table. Jan Moyer - There are 2 bathrooms upstairs. A hallway guest bathroom and a small master 'en-suite' I didn't draw on the rough sketch. There is also a bathroom downstairs and I'm considering stealing space from the laundry room downstairs and adding a 4th. Sort of mirror the upstairs by making a in law suite with current basement bathroom made as an 'en-suite' and then a guest basement bathroom. Patricia Colwell - The basement is a walkout and the bedroom does have an egress window. In fact there's another room, a Den that has a closet but doesn't have an egress window. I'm considering giving that one an egress which would bump the bedroom count up to 5. The home is about 2,300 square feet.

Neither option is great. As it is, you exit your bedroom to a view of the garage door, and any shoes that might have been left in that hall. I don’t see a good drop zone for “stuff”. On the other hand, having the bedroom door exit to the dining nook gives you less privacy. But, it is nicer to walk out to, and is more convenient throughout the day. And would let you reconfigure the closet and bath to allow more space in the laundry and service hall, better drop zone. But, since you didn’t ask but shared the whole plan... You lose a lot of storage in your closet and potential drop-zone or hook space in the laundry room, by having a door from closet to laundry. By having rods in the closet corners, you already have unusable or inaccessible hanging space. Is it really that far to walk around? Maybe you could have a small pass through instead? Don’t do double doors to the bathroom, they are a bother. Having the other three bedrooms approached through the living room gives you less usable space in the living room. If you can move Bedroom #4 forward, the foyer can lead to the bedrooms, creating a nice straight route from the laundry and garage. A bit more gracious, and a bit more private for those bedrooms. And, you won’t have a view from the kitchen to the hall bathroom! For lighting, consider solatubes in the halls. In the kitchen, the refrigerator seems to be up against the wall; be sure you can open the fridge door past 90 degrees. It might need to move over a bit. And, please reconsider the angled sink in the island. When the dishwasher is open, it’s in the way of where you are standing. Where will the dishes and silverware be stored? Post your kitchen in Kitchens, they are great at helping people create the best layout for their families.

As someone who's been down this road recently: assume it's impossible. Figure it out when you move in. I recently just bought a house and during the showing, I took measurements and was sure I'd be able to steal some space from a redundant hallway and turn 1.5 baths into 2. Once I actually got into the house, I took careful measurements and plugged them in to a fairly straightforward, free floor planning software called Sweethome 3D. It lets you draw out your walls, fixtures, etc. and walk through them virtually to get a sense of what the space will feel like. In the end , it would have been possible to get 2 full baths but the shape would have been awkward and cramped. I ended up combining the 1.5 baths to a more functional, spacious single bath. Even rearranging the plumbing for that proved to be a challenge-- I can't imagine what a pain it would have been to make everything work with two baths. Modern cookie-cutter houses are not really modular-- they're hyper-designed to maximize space and utility down to the fraction of the inch, and as a result there's usually little tolerance for alterations. So, once you get in there, if it will work, great, if not, well, your expectations were managed going in.