Updated Hallway and Hall Bathroom

 Guys- I'm going to vent a little bit here.  If someone allows you to stay in their home- that they pay their hard earned money for- treat it with a little respect.  

The hall bathroom has always been my guest bathroom because I have my own bathroom in my bedroom.  Well the last 4 or so years it's been two grown ass adults bathroom and the ONLY responsibility they had living here was to clean the bathroom.  I clean every other inch of my house- the bathroom that I don't use was not going to also be my responsibility.  Well- clearly that wasn't done.  Or if it was done- it was really half-assed.  You want to talk about disgusting?  

Candle wax spilled all down the wall from a plug-in warmer.  Was it cleaned up?  Or was it left there for me to pick off dried wax until my finger nails were bloody?  

Shaving cream splatter all over the walls above the shower.  Was it cleaned up?  Or was is left there for me to scrub?

I won't even discuss the underneath of the toilet seat.  NEW toilet seat- by the way- that I had replaced within the last couple of years.  VOMIT INDUCING.  I don't even want to know where those stains came from.  I mean, I know.  But ew David.  Ew.  

Or let's talk about the mirror that wasn't suction cupped to the shower wall but was epoxy glued to it.  It can't be removed without damaging the shower.  Same with the loofa hooks.  Both of which- CAME WITH SUCTION CUPS.  

Just assholes.  Fucking assholes.  I would never be so disrespectful if someone allowed me to stay in their home.  Never.  

Anyway- rant over.  Disgusting.  

Back in October shortly after I repainted my master bathroom, I realized how gross this bathroom was and that I had enough left over paint from the master bathroom paint to redo this one as well.  After scrubbing the shit out of it- I got to repainting.  It was a lighter gray and basically went to my go-to charcoal gray.  

Don't worry- all the grossness has been cleaned prior to these photos being taken.  I spared you.  

Now it looks like this.  Clean. 

Not a huge change.  But definitely a needed change.  Now at least I can walk in there without feeling like I need a bleach bath.  Still need to run to Lowe's and grab a new toilet seat but for the most part- all is well with this bathroom.  

Now to the hallway.  

When you walk up the stairs you are in this small square area that has the doors to each of the bedrooms and the hall bath, and also opens up to the upstairs living room/office.  It's been battered and bruised over the last 10 years.  There are more scuff marks on these walls than I care to admit.  I'm sure I'm to blame for some of them.  But man was it looking dingy.  I headed to the store to purchase another gallon of paint- same color as the hall bathroom.  Then got to taping off all of the doors, ceiling, and baseboards.  It took me longer to tape than actually paint.  Five doors!  

Again- this was the same light gray rhat the hall bathroom was.  But you can see the difference in the old and new grays below.  

And no this "artwork" above isn't making a come back.  I've got plans for the above wall space.  

That stairwell.  Ugh.  That needs to be painted.  But it's sooooooooo high and I can't get high enough on my ladder without panicking.  Queue my whiny, damsel in distress voice.  Any takers?  

Finished with the tape removed.  

The upstairs living room is just to the right of the above wall- you can see the tiny bit of entrance into it at the bottom corner of the photo.  That is the same light gray and it's staying the light gray.  There is way too much furniture in there to move to repaint.  The walls are perfectly fine in there so keeping that one off of the list to repaint.  

I did however, make this macramé thingy to go in there.  Above the tv I had previously painted a canvas that hung there.  It was the color scheme from before and had been in storage.  There were two of them- one I previously showed you that I ripped the canvas off and cut the frame down to wrap the Janie paint-by-number canvas on.  The larger one is something I am currently working on for the wall in the hallway.  But more on that in another post.  

I was scrolling through Pinterest one day and saw this.  

I loved it immediately.  Then I thought- could I make this for the upstairs living room?  I mean, it wouldn't hurt to try.  I went and bought macramé string and navy blue dye, found two pieces of scrap wood, and busted out the glue gun.  Remember two sentences ago where I said it "wouldn't hurt to try?"  Hot glue is AWFUL.  Like who even invented it?  Satan?  My fingertips would like to find that asshole and give him a hard kick in the nuts.  You know it was man.  Talk about blisters.  Never will I attempt this again.  At least in the way that I did.  After finishing I had many thoughts on the various ways I could have completed this without using the hot glue.  But in the moment it was a genius idea.  

I teased everyone on FB with the below photo.  So this is what I ended up using it for.  Now you know.  

I cut the string into 3' pieces and used the entire roll of it.  Folded it in half and secured very professionally with a hair band and dipped it into the dye to attempt an ombre look.  

I don't think I had the patience to hold each section in the bucket long enough for the full ombre effect.  But whatevs.  Then once the strings dried I got the glue gun out.  

I glued on the backside of the top piece of wood first- getting them as close as possible to each other.  As you can see above- the wood pieces are the same length.  This changes once complete.  

Then I started crisscrossing the string and gluing them to the back of the bottom piece of wood.  

I only had the ability to clamp the bottom piece of wood on the left side since it was in the middle of the island.  So I improvised by putting painters tape on the right side with a line on it to put the wood on and clamped the left side.  I'd have to pull the right side down, hold it in place on the line and glue.  Then repeat like 100 times.  But I needed to make sure it was pulled tight as well as even on both sides from the top piece of wood.  Nothing like losing your fingerprints to go hang it on the wall for it to be crooked.  

Final product.  It's OK.  Definitely not in love with it.  It just fills the space.  You live you learn with DIY.  I don't think the original photo is macramé string.  I bet she wasn't using her kitchen island when attaching the string.  She probably used a staple gun to hold the strings tight and not hot glue.  But again- it is what it is at this point. I attempted something- got my creative juices flowing- spent some time away from the tv- and no longer have a blank space above the tv on the wall.  Here it is finished and hung up.  Oh and see the shortened bottom piece of wood?  There was just too much excess on each side.  It looked weird so I trimmed off about 5-6" in each side.  

Meh.  Just meh.  I'll eventually trim the bottom so it's even across like the pinspiration photo. But it's still going to be meh.