Quick update:

I'm sorry posts have been so few and far-between lately. You can once again blame it on my perfectionistic tendencies that don't like showing things until they are 100% "finished." But I am starting to realize that may not happen anytime soon, so I need to update you all with some "progress posts" instead.

One room-in-progress is the hallway. This "room" has been pretty much neglected since we got here, aside from three frames that I had in our rental house's hallway. I decided last year that I wanted to start a tradition of adding a new photo each year to our hallway to form a gallery wall of sorts. The photo in the frame is representative of the biggest event or change from that year. So in 2008, it was a wedding photo. In 2009 it is a "family" photo of us with Lucy, and the most recent one is a picture of us in front of our house. Who knows what 2011 will hold!


















Other than that, this hallway has sat pretty bare for the first six months we've lived here. I finally got some inspiration to start warming it up a bit. Honestly, I had never even really noticed these two lights. But, it occurred to me, that hanging something dramatic could really help the space seem more special, especially since the ceiling is pretty high.

I decided to go with a light I've been dreaming of since before we even moved in (see this post) from good ole Pottery Barn. 

One tip I've learned is before you make a purchase on lighting, GOOGLE AROUND! I copy and pasted the name of the light, and ended up finding some for sale of eBay for considerably cheaper. Same exact light, and the box had never before been opened. Yes, please. We ended up saving over $100 for the two of them. 

So now our hallway looks like this:

(Not the best picture I know. I found it quite challenging to photograph this long, narrow hallway in its entirety. )

Notice there is now also a runner rug as well. That did a lot for warming the space up. As for how I settled on this rug, well... I really only could pick from a handful of options, because this space required a 12-footer and those are not exactly easy to come by (8-foot is most common). So out of the ones I found (mainly searching Overstock.com) this was my favorite one. I thought the stripes gave off a certain "elegant beachy" vibe that I am generally going for throughout the house. 

So now I am thinking of how to "finish" the hallway. My immediate thought was adding chair-rail and board and batten to both sides, but many years down the road I worry about running out of space for our growing gallery wall. Also--paint color. Before I got the rug, I was thinking grey. Now I feel like the rug kinda necessitates more of a golden, warm color. What would you do?