This hallway and staircase look so different than when we bought the house. However, we didn’t do that much work. Besides the obvious cosmetic changes, we removed the wall surrounding the staircase and installed newel posts, spindles, and a banister. What an insane difference it made! Here’s a shot of the before.

In addition to removing the wall around the staircase, we also moved the laundry room from the first floor to this floor. See the two doors in the before picture below? Those were two identical closets. We demolished them and stole space from the bedrooms on either side of the two closets to make room for a new laundry room. Now the laundry room is centrally located near all of the bedrooms in the house.

We had a neighbor stop by who wanted to see progress updates on the house. When we showed her that we moved the laundry room upstairs, she told us she thought we made a big mistake. She said she’d hate having the laundry room upstairs because her kids come in from playing sports and she wants their dirty clothes taken off on the first floor in the laundry room, so they’re not tracking anything through the house. We politely disagreed. To me, how often you do everyday laundry far outnumbers how often your kids have dirty pants. Plus, how dirty are these pants that you can’t even walk through the house wearing them?!

Funny how everyone has a different perspective. Mike and I used to think and think and overthink how people would use spaces, where they’d be most likely to put furniture, what paint colors would appeal to most people, etc. and we quickly learned that it doesn’t matter how much thought or research you put into it…everyone is different and no matter what you do, someone won’t like what you did. So now, we just focus on delivering high quality houses that we’re proud of. It’s worked thus far! :-)