A green lower half on the walls all the way up the stairs, dated and closing the whole run in.
- Covered the stairs and the floor so the family could still use them.
- Filled and sanded where the old dado line had been.
- Cut in by hand at the string, the spindles and the ceiling line.
- Woodwork rubbed down and finished in eggshell.
- One colour taken from the front door to the top landing.
The walls had been done in two colours with a dark green on the bottom half, and it was doing what a two-tone hallway always does — chopping the wall in half at waist height and making the whole run feel lower and narrower than it is.
Halls, stairs and landings are the hardest space in a house to work in. It is two storeys of wall meeting over a staircase, so a good deal of the day goes on getting safe access rather than on painting, and it is usually the darkest part of the house before you start. It is also the one space a family cannot do without for a week, so we sheeted it properly and kept the stairs usable the whole time we were there.
Taking the line off the walls and running one colour from the front door to the top landing is the single cheapest change you can make to how big a house feels. The stairs are the same width they were in the before photograph. They do not look it.
Something like this?
Tell us what state yours is in. A photograph of the worst corner is the quickest way to get a straight answer about what it needs.